Poll: Do you have Hyperacusis (auditory sensitivity)?

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I was diagnosed about five years ago with Hyperacusis (auditory sensitivity). I also have had lifelong Tinnitus (continual ringing in the ears).

I carry over the head hearing protectors in my vehicle whenever I need them as well has having a pair at home and at work.

I take an hour long walk daily and wear ear plugs.

The audiologist recommended that I purposely expose myself to non-damaging loud sounds to desensitize my hearing. I decided not to do that because of my tinnitus. When I'm exposed to loud sounds, for days afterward, the ringing in my ears increases in volume until returning to its "normal" level. My stress increases when my tinnitus is exacerbated.

I'm curious as to how many others are overly sensitive to loud sound.

I do am not sure if its related to autism or hearing my parents in bed when I was growing up.

I spend most of the day and night with headphones in listening to something because background noise puts me on edge, and loud noises make me feel under attack.

For my first 3 decades of life, I assumed that everyone heard noise as acutely as I did, and that my reaction must be some personal fault in noise tolerance.

Then I was asked to be a subject in a scientific experiment designed to answer the question what percentage of people in a random sample have acute high frequency and what does the distribution of scores look like?

So as one of the subjects, when it was my turn, I sat in a sound proofed cubicle with headphones and pressed a button every time I head a beep. The signal noise design detection method was well designed and the equipment was owned by the university's psychophysics department. I assumed I would score as pretty average, as I had noticed no difference between my own sound perception in daily life from anyone else in the faculty, and nor had they in daily life.

The professor in charge of this experiment asked to see me when the scores were all tabulated and processed. To my astonishment at the time he said that my scores were so consistently high on the signal detection that he had never seen anyone in decades of experiments detect such high frquency levels with complete accuracy. He also said that the range of signals in the experiment were based on what was considered normal and that the top end should have been undetectable for all subjects.

He couldn't explain why I had been able to do this and nor could I. It would be another 3 decades before I understood the answer lay in the range of unusual AS hyperability.

Not knowing that at the time, I felt like a freak and the feeling made me sad, despite being asked to lecture in sound perception because "you are the only student who competently understands it".

In my science class (which only had about 8 people in it) they did a similar test where they played a sound and we had to see how long you could hear it for, I could hear it the best.

I have the same problems as you. Also always wear earplugs. It sucks.

I have never been able to desensitize to sound over-sensitivity. Or smell for that matter, too. Any tricks out there to do this?

I would guess my hearing acuity at this point is poor because every time I hear a loud sound, like a truck honking right next to me, I get an ear infection.

I was sensitive to loud sounds when I was little but it got alot better as I got older. Working around loud machines also helped me as an adult. I don't think I was as sensitive as the average Aspie. My girlfriend is on the spectrum & she brings earplugs everywhere & even sleeps with em.

I seem to. I had to leave an auditorium that was playing a stupid-loud 82-decibels (I measured), while everyone else sat there without problems. Something this loud is a bad idea for everyone, but I was amazed that no one else left!

Sounds like packaging tape ripping off a roll and some frequencies of phone audio hurt to hear. I hear buzzing fluorescent and certain LED lights all the time, but I think everyone else probably does too. They don't seem to be as annoyed though.

I don't experience all sounds at the same volume like some people do though.

Yes, I have very acute hearing. On the other hand, it's not always the volume of the sound that is the problem for me, though whatever the source that does make it worse. It's more like I hear too much, especially as the number of conflicting sound sources rises; there's so much detail there, but I struggle to isolate or classify them as individual sources. Eventually it just becomes a mush that fills my head until I can't bear it any more. I suspect misophonia is involved as well, as there are certain sounds that can be intensely irritating even at very low volumes and others which are unbearable to the point of meltdown. On the other hand, I've played in bands and been to the occasional gig; my hearing does get fatigued by it, and I never liked it to be too loud, but it never made the perceptual confusion or overstimulation kick in.

I would love to be tested like that myself. Throughout life, I've often been able to hear high frequency sounds which the people around me were unable to. In childhood, I can remember being made very uncomfortable by the extreme high frequency sounds made by some people's old tube TV sets etc. which no-one else seemed at all aware of. I have been driven nuts and lost sleep because of an ultra-sonic cat/pest repeller in a neighbour's yards, which again, no-one else could hear let alone were irritated by. Likewise with especially quiet sounds and at the low frequency end.

Not anymore, despite having absoloute pitch. To some extent, I did years ago, although, it might have been more the unexpected nature of the sound rather than its volume.

Yes, mightily. And a near total inability to filter out human speech when I'm trying to concentrate - whether it's radio, TV, or live.

My parents were television-addicted, which made doing my homework and trying to sleep daily ordeals... then I had an even worse TV addict as my first college roommate.

From the moment I set up on my own, there's never been a TV in my home.

Everybody always thought I was being intolerant and I can hear very quiet noises, even music is too much and some things sound awful.

I can hear faint noises and signals, even electricity in lights which people say that I'm crazy. They cant hear anything.

I’m pretty sensitive to loud or obnoxious noises. I need to give myself some silent moments throughout the day or I get completely overstimulated.

I've heard it before (electricity in wiring), but usually that's too quiet for me to hear now that I'm an old man.

Also sometimes the same sounds seem louder or quieter on a different day which makes me wonder if I'm crazy.

Last edited by Exuvian on 29 Jun 2018, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh yeah, I've heard that too. The filaments singing.