Critical Warning: What You Need to Know About Hyperacusis Treatment

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe sound sensitivity, you need to know that mainstream internet search results often promote outdated, dangerous advice. Standard websites frequently advocate for “Gradual Sound Exposure,” “Sound Therapy” or “Desensitization.” While this may help with mild loudness intolerance, it can cause severe, long term worsening of symptoms for those with pain hyperacusis (noxacusis).

Please read and consider these essential, peer-reviewed research articles and expert interviews that explain the neurological reality of hyperacusis pain:

Understanding the Gap in Care: Read this breakdown of hyperacusis treatment in which researcher Dr. Kelly Jahn discusses the lack of knowledge most audiologists have about the difference between sound sensitivity versus pain hyperacusis. She says that “Only a few knew it involved pain, and some said it’s a mental health condition.”

A Shift in Audiology: Review this direct perspective from a leading audiologist on what I have learned from my hyperacusis patients regarding the harm caused by sound exposure therapy for those with pain hyperacusis. She says “I now know it’s wrong to tell pain hyperacusis patients to stop wearing earplugs or earmuffs or to initiate sound therapy.”

The Reality of the Pain: Read Dr. Marsha Johnson’s crucial hyperacusis interview where she says “My patients with pain hyperacusis found that sound therapy made them worse. We need to get the warning out.”

The Scientific Evidence: Dive into the clinical data published in this Hearing Journal article which details the findings of several hyperacusis surveys. 

Treatments for Hyperacusis Pain:  Read this research study published in The Journal of Pain that talks about the lack of understanding that these patients face from healthcare providers. The paper states “Individuals with pain hyperacusis often present with a relatively severe clinical phenotype, wherein they report frequent “setbacks” (i.e., symptom exacerbations in response to trigger sounds) and reduced benefit from behavioral interventions (e.g., sound therapy). Despite the severity of pain hyperacusis, healthcare professionals do not widely recognize the pain hyperacusis phenotype.”

Hyperacusis can occur as a result of or in addition to other disorders. Other conditions can impact or influence the severity and symptoms of an individuals hyperacusis. Examples of this include but are not limited to: A patient with tinnitus experiencing elevated tinnitus from sound exposure, a patient with TMJ experiencing jaw pain from sounds, a migraine patient experiencing lingering migraines from sound, a person with a vestibular disorder loosing there balance from sound, etc. It is also possible for patients who previously did not have any of these existing conditions, to develop them as a result or in combination with the Hyperacusis. The decibel level and frequency of sound that is painful is different for each patient, and sound at the same volume but different frequency may have a different effect on the same patient. The intensity of the pain, length of the pain, pain locations, and associated symptoms vary greatly from person to person. What all patients with pain hyperacusis have in common is experiencing physical pain from normal every day sounds, and deserve to be accommodated and understood by their friends families society and the medical community. The accommodations needed are different from person to person depending on severity of there hyperacusis as well as conditions they may have.

Frequently associated medical conditions:

Otological

Bell’s Palsy, Ramsay Hunt syndrome, Ménière’s disease, perilymph fistula, superior semicircular canal dehiscence, acoustic trauma, barotrauma, noise-induced hearing loss, stapedectomy, tympanoplasty

Neurological

Autism, carotid aneurysm, middle cerebral aneurysm, migrainous cerebral infarction, head injury, Chiari’s malformation, sympathetic reflex dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, migraine, epilepsy, myasthenia gravis,
cerebrospinal hypertonia, primary thalamo deficiency, attention-deficit disorder, anxiety and depression disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, complication of spinal anesthesia, Lyme Disease

Endocrine

Addison’s disease, pan-hypopituitarism, hyperthyroidism

Genetic or Cognitive

Williams syndrome, idiopathic hypercalcemy (Fanconi and Williams–Beuren syndrome), Cri du Chat syndrome, Tay–Sachs disease, Cogan syndrome, GM1 gangliosidosis, spina bifida

Other

Temporomandibular disorders, fibromyalgia