12/11/2023 0 Comments Auditory sensitivity medical![]() ![]() “So when you slip off the earplugs, everything is going to be much louder and you'll be irritated to a greater degree."īetter news: While there is no cure for hyeracusis, there are ways to make the condition more tolerable. “Your brain becomes used to not getting sound for several weeks or months,” says Hull. That may enable them to function but will usually only worsen the problem. Many people with hyperacusis wear earplugs, earmuffs or other devices to block out bothersome noise, or steer clear of social situations where they're likely to encounter uncomfortable sounds. Less common: Hyperacusis can come on suddenly, as a result of a wide list of conditions - among them, Lyme disease, Meniere's disease, an adverse drug reaction, hypothyroidism and migraine. The condition can also be brought on by a traumatic head injury, such as being hit in the head by a deployed air bag in your car or taking a nasty fall from a ladder. In fact, the problem is more likely to be found in people who have been exposed to a lot of noise from their occupation - farming or manufacturing, for example - or those who play in orchestras or bands. I use the analogy of a bruise: If someone hits you on the arm and you bruise there, that hurts a lot more than if there is no bruise.” Or it may develop gradually, says Fasman, “especially when there's hearing loss or damage to the auditory system, which can happen just from aging, genetic factors and noise exposure over time. Tyler cites gunshots and Fourth of July fireworks as common triggers. “Exposure to even one loud, intense burst of noise can set it off,” says Raymond Hull, an audiology neuroscience researcher and professor of communication sciences and disorders at Wichita State University. Probably the most common is noise exposure. Hyperacusis can be caused by a number of factors. ![]() It can take a serious emotional and psychological toll, bringing on bouts of depression, anxiety, stress or panic attacks. But it may also be sounds with “rapid rise time” - for example, a firetruck racing by, with sirens blaring, says Tyler. "A grocery store, with the beeping of registers and extraneous noise of carts, is a place that many people with sound sensitivity end up avoiding altogether,” says Kaela Fasman, an audiologist at Sound Relief Hearing Center in Golden, Colorado. Tyler says one patient told him, “Setting a coffee mug on a wooden table feels like a thumb pressing hard on a broken bone deep in my ear.” People's trigger sounds vary, but common irritants include the sound of dishes clanging together in the kitchen or knives and forks hitting plates. They cover their ears and wear earplugs all the time.” It impacts their everyday life to the point that it becomes highly debilitating. "For some, it isn't a major issue - they just note that specific sounds are loud or annoying,” says Richard Tyler, a psychoacoustician-audiologist and professor of otolaryngology and communication sciences and disorders at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine. Complicating the discomfort: It's often accompanied by tinnitus, a common condition in which people hear a ringing or buzzing in the ear. Others are irritated by certain types of noise - say, a baby crying in a restaurant or the sound of their dinner companion's chewing. Some say moderately or mildly intense sounds are uncomfortably loud. Thought to affect 1 in 50,000 adults (though many experts suspect the actual number may be much higher because some might not know to seek treatment), it's experienced by people in different ways. This can lead to something called “listening fatigue” and problems hearing. The auditory cortex, which processes sound in the brain, is more easily overwhelmed when there's an overload of noise. It's common for noise to become more bothersome with age. Indeed, some of those plagued with this condition are unable to tolerate the kinds of ordinary, everyday sounds that the rest of us wouldn't even notice. But for those suffering from hyperacusis, a hearing disorder characterized by an unusual sensitivity to certain sounds, even noises that aren't ear-splitters for most people can be hard to take. En español | The sound of a jackhammer drilling into a nearby sidewalk or the next-door neighbor's leaf blower may not be music to anyone's ears.
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