At
the ARO Ear Research conference, we shared several stories of
hyperacusis patients. In most cases, the patients themselves were too
severely injured to attend, so their relatives stood in for them. It is
important to put a face to the suffering so that researchers can
understand the true and devastating impact of noise-induced pain.
Here is a short version of one story presented. The full version will be posted in the near future on our main website at hyperacusisresearch.org.
I have always listened to loud music and played loud music, thinking the worst that could go wrong was mild hearing loss at age 60. At 14, I started listening to loud music through earbuds. When I started playing bass guitar, it had to be loud or else I wouldn’t be satisfied.
On November 4th, 2012, after practicing really loud on my new bass speaker, my ears felt weird. That is the best I can explain it. The next day I developed tinnitus.
Soon I realized that tinnitus would be the least of my worries, as I started getting pain from sound like ice clinking in glasses and the metal clinking of my belt buckle. I put “sound sensitivity” into Google and found out that I had hyperacusis. I was nervous about this as this could destroy my dreams of a music career.
I started treatment with an oto-neurologist. The doctor estimated my loudness discomfort to be around 65-70 dB. He provided white noise generators and I also started using constant sound enrichment. For three months I wore generators emitting white noise for 10 hours a day but stopped because it was uncomfortable having something in my ears all day. I tried sound enrichment for 14 months.
During this time I kept slightly trying to push the boundaries of what volume I could handle, but with no success. I would just end up getting worse and would have to recover before continuing. I listened to the terrible advice from my doctor and never wore hearing protection against sounds that were below 85dB.
During those months I lost all my friends because I couldn’t be with more than a few people at a time and they found me boring because we couldn’t do anything other than talk quietly. I had to spend most time indoors where I could recuperate and avoid worsening. I spent my days researching my condition only to find out that no one knew what was going on.
As bad as this situation was, it was heaven compared with what came next. On the night of December 31st, 2013, a glass bottle accidentally got knocked onto a tile counter while I was bending over. The sound shot right into my left ear from a distance of 1 or 2 feet. It was so loud that my left ear became muffled for a few minutes. When I woke up the next day, I felt that my ears were slightly more sensitive but due to the delayed reaction of worsening I was caught off guard.
I was getting hungry so I got in the car wearing improperly inserted earplugs (something I didn’t learn to do correctly until after my catastrophic worsening) to get some pizza. Just after starting the car, the car speaker system started blasting on full volume telling me to resubscribe to OnStar (a GPS service). It was so loud that I thought a helicopter was above me. I fumbled with the volume and eventually got it down.
Sounds that were ok before, like the creaks in the wood floor, were now actively painful. I woke up to the passing cars outside vibrating my skull and the voice of my girlfriend sending pins and needles through my ears and brain. I was rapidly worsening at this point but still took the horrible advice to not wear ear protection for sounds under 85 dB “because they can’t hurt you.” I did that for two weeks until I realized that I had to wear earmuffs to halt the worsening. And halt it it did.
Now here I am, 13 months after that incident, with zero progress. I lost an estimated 45 decibels of sound tolerance from those events, down from the prior 70 decibels, and consider myself to have one of the worst cases of hyperacusis currently. Pain from noise pretty much starts at the threshold of hearing. Laughing hurts, my shirt rubbing against my skin is painful to hear, I can’t use my normal speaking voice anymore and have to whisper, the sound of the nose-piece of my glasses jingling when I take them off feels like my ear drums are being stabbed with needles, the birds and frogs outside are uncomfortable to hear. I haven’t listened to music in over a year or picked up my bass guitar, my most favorite things in life. All sounds are painful at this stage and will worsen me if I am not careful.
To manage my condition I have to do absolutely nothing all day and be extremely careful not to have another noise insult, which could easily take away the last of my ear reserves. My days are filled with excruciating ear pain as my hyperacusis is so severe most everyday inside sounds are painful even with earmuffs on. I had no idea something like this could happen.
Here is a short version of one story presented. The full version will be posted in the near future on our main website at hyperacusisresearch.org.
I have always listened to loud music and played loud music, thinking the worst that could go wrong was mild hearing loss at age 60. At 14, I started listening to loud music through earbuds. When I started playing bass guitar, it had to be loud or else I wouldn’t be satisfied.
On November 4th, 2012, after practicing really loud on my new bass speaker, my ears felt weird. That is the best I can explain it. The next day I developed tinnitus.
Soon I realized that tinnitus would be the least of my worries, as I started getting pain from sound like ice clinking in glasses and the metal clinking of my belt buckle. I put “sound sensitivity” into Google and found out that I had hyperacusis. I was nervous about this as this could destroy my dreams of a music career.
I started treatment with an oto-neurologist. The doctor estimated my loudness discomfort to be around 65-70 dB. He provided white noise generators and I also started using constant sound enrichment. For three months I wore generators emitting white noise for 10 hours a day but stopped because it was uncomfortable having something in my ears all day. I tried sound enrichment for 14 months.
During this time I kept slightly trying to push the boundaries of what volume I could handle, but with no success. I would just end up getting worse and would have to recover before continuing. I listened to the terrible advice from my doctor and never wore hearing protection against sounds that were below 85dB.
During those months I lost all my friends because I couldn’t be with more than a few people at a time and they found me boring because we couldn’t do anything other than talk quietly. I had to spend most time indoors where I could recuperate and avoid worsening. I spent my days researching my condition only to find out that no one knew what was going on.
As bad as this situation was, it was heaven compared with what came next. On the night of December 31st, 2013, a glass bottle accidentally got knocked onto a tile counter while I was bending over. The sound shot right into my left ear from a distance of 1 or 2 feet. It was so loud that my left ear became muffled for a few minutes. When I woke up the next day, I felt that my ears were slightly more sensitive but due to the delayed reaction of worsening I was caught off guard.
I was getting hungry so I got in the car wearing improperly inserted earplugs (something I didn’t learn to do correctly until after my catastrophic worsening) to get some pizza. Just after starting the car, the car speaker system started blasting on full volume telling me to resubscribe to OnStar (a GPS service). It was so loud that I thought a helicopter was above me. I fumbled with the volume and eventually got it down.
Sounds that were ok before, like the creaks in the wood floor, were now actively painful. I woke up to the passing cars outside vibrating my skull and the voice of my girlfriend sending pins and needles through my ears and brain. I was rapidly worsening at this point but still took the horrible advice to not wear ear protection for sounds under 85 dB “because they can’t hurt you.” I did that for two weeks until I realized that I had to wear earmuffs to halt the worsening. And halt it it did.
Now here I am, 13 months after that incident, with zero progress. I lost an estimated 45 decibels of sound tolerance from those events, down from the prior 70 decibels, and consider myself to have one of the worst cases of hyperacusis currently. Pain from noise pretty much starts at the threshold of hearing. Laughing hurts, my shirt rubbing against my skin is painful to hear, I can’t use my normal speaking voice anymore and have to whisper, the sound of the nose-piece of my glasses jingling when I take them off feels like my ear drums are being stabbed with needles, the birds and frogs outside are uncomfortable to hear. I haven’t listened to music in over a year or picked up my bass guitar, my most favorite things in life. All sounds are painful at this stage and will worsen me if I am not careful.
To manage my condition I have to do absolutely nothing all day and be extremely careful not to have another noise insult, which could easily take away the last of my ear reserves. My days are filled with excruciating ear pain as my hyperacusis is so severe most everyday inside sounds are painful even with earmuffs on. I had no idea something like this could happen.
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