What can be done to help with hyperacusis?

Have you explored the possibility of a cochlear implant?

I have, Julie, thanks for asking. I'm a candidate for implants in both ears. I'm sure a cochlear implant would be helpful for speech, which would be amazing, but my first language is music (I was a professional singer until I lost the use of my second ear in 2015). After speaking with a number of people who have implants, and talking about their experiences with music, it doesn't seem like the right fit for me. Holding out for a cure in the distant future might never pan out, but the research being done by companies like Frequency Therapeutics and Otonomy gives me hope. Even Elon Musk has jumped in with Neuralink, which seems like more of a concept at this point than anything close to reality, but if you had asked people fifteen years ago whether Musk would really be able to privatize rocket manufacturing and have SpaceX rockets flying NASA astronauts into space, I think most people would have been skeptical.

I wish you luck with the wait for a cure. Some of the research being done currently is encouraging. I hope I live long enough to see it even if I cannot benefit from it. I have more trouble with music due to my arthritic pointer hitting finger the wrong string on guitar that with my ears hearing it. I'm bimodal, using both a hearing aid and a cochlear implant. It is my miracle. I enjoy music, but music I've known most of my life that is familiar to me is what is most enjoyable. I encourage you to support the Hearing Health Foundation's research and the Hearing Loss Association of American's advocacy that encourages research in the field. Incidentally, for what it's worth. I had my CI surgery done on the ear that had 'gone down completely' and was unaided for over 25 years. I can turn it off and listen only with the aided ear, but my brain has truly wired itself to prefer using both technologies. The brain is amazing.

That's great that you're playing guitar...I'm jealous! I still try to play sometimes, because I miss it so much, but I've lost all pitch discrimination, so it all just sounds like a distorted mess. Not sure if you'd be able to hear something that's not familiar, but this is me playing two years before I lost the second ear:

simply beautiful

That's beautiful Mark. I enjoyed it and heard it quite well. My guitar playing is pretty amateur, and I would not play with anyone else in the house! 🙂 As a child I had 'an ear' for music and could sit down and play most tunes I knew with chords. I had an accordion and a piano. It drove my music instructors crazy because I wasn't reading the music. Obviously, I didn't become a professional musician. Hearing loss devastated my career as a teacher. It changed my social life. It was diagnosed when I was in college and progressed fairly fast. In my 40s I met other people like me. We all agreed to not let hearing loss destroy us. Some of us changed professions. Some became advocates. I did return to teaching for a few years, but found a new niche in human services. (Nothing to do with hearing loss.) I look back and realize how fortunate I was to have learned about a national support group I could learn from. Now that I'm in my 70s and retired, I realize that the choices, challenges and changes I experienced because of my hearing loss were gifts of a unique kind. I learned how to appreciate things I'd never even noticed before. I met people who were pioneers in the cochlear implant studies. It gave me the courage to go for it. I've traveled extensively because I've been involved in HLAA.

Most important, I knew from my experiences that I wanted to remain in the hearing world. I wasn't cut out to be a person of Deaf culture.My family, friends and dreams all were hearing people and thoughts. I did a lot of research on cochlear implants before deciding to have one. A very wise person who was prominent in the field of audiology and education told me to amplify sound to the ear that had zero discrimination. I did that by using headphones with a portable radio. I didn't have a hearing aid in that ear. I listened to a lot of audio tapes and music. I do believe that helped the 'dead' ear make note of sound even though it did not understand speech. The inner ear is where sound is discriminated and identified. The cells within the cochlea are like a piano keyboard. When they die, the unique sound that each cell identifies disappears. The auditory nerve does not get stimulated to send those unique sounds to the brain for interpretation, but that nerve is NOT dead. It's just waiting for stimulation. That's what a CI does.

When I was first diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss I was told there would never be anything in my lifetime that could help me hear. I was 21. I am so thankful that statement was not true. With the CI, my speech recognition scores went from the low 30 percent range to 95%. I still have trouble in noisy settings, and it still takes energy to concentrate for long periods of time. But I hear, communicate, sing, and enjoy life in the hearing world. Again....so thankful.

Sometimes those lemons can turn into gifts. Keep hoping. You have a beautiful voice. Keep an open mind about cochlear implants and all the new options that will evolve over your lifetime.

Thanks, glad you liked the song. You have a great outlook on your hearing loss, Julie. I hope that at some point I'll come to view things similarly.

Thank you Mark888. I encourage you to join HLAA. The current national president, Richard Einhorn, is a musician and composer. I have met so many interesting people, from all walks of life through HLAA. I credit HLAA for giving me my life back. The founder of the organization was once the third highest person in the CIA. He was an amazing man who learned to lipread in 7 different languages. Sadly, he is now deceased, but his legend lives on. I hope the chapters can begin meeting in person soon, and that the national conventions will resume.

To Wayfarer: I've had the same experience. How do you comfortably "live with it" when every sudden sound, every continual roar of background life, makes you fold in on yourself and (at least) WANT to run to your quiet place? I have a hard time describing my discomfort even to friends who are sympathetic without going into lecture mode. And while my closest friends and family try to remember to keep their voices low, it's not sustainable. Only if I get a pained look on my face and tweak my ear like Carol Burnett did, as a sign to"lower your voice," are they reminded.

I know how you feel because I have it too. The noise never stops plus the hyperacusis , sleep very little and do not want to go out into the world because of everyday noise. Would love to get some relief .