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Hearing problems: sensitivity and pain 1 of 2

About sensitivity and pain in the ears

There is a medical term for sensitivity and pain caused by sound and associated with deafness. It is hearing recruitment. The medical term hyperacusis describes a similar condition when sounds of everyday life are intrusively loud, uncomfortable and/or painful, but it is not associated with deafness.

A sure sign of sensitivity to sound is how the person concerned uses a television controller. Their fingers seldom stray far from the volume control which gets adjusted constantly as the sound level or pitch changes. (I have worn out several controllers over the years, way before the television itself needed replacing.) Also people with sensitivity to sound wince with pain at certain sounds, and onlookers may not recognise this for what it is, thinking that it is an attempt to be amusing.

The problem of severe sensitivity to sound does not seem to have received much effective attention from medical researchers. One suggestion given to me was to progressively acclimatise myself to increasingly louder sounds, but I didn't attempt to do so because every time I feel severe pain from sound, I seem to lose just a little more of my ability to hear. This seems logical, since exposure to loud sound is a recognised cause of deafness.

For anyone who experiences severe sensitivity to sound, coping with it has to be a way of life. My ear plugs are always with me, ready to be inserted at a moment's notice. Obviously a balance has to be struck between using the ear plugs and being able to listen to what people are saying. This is not easy: it can be very upsetting to feel forced to wear earplugs while a conversation is going on that one wants to be part of. Occasionally, too, one is caught unawares by a sudden loud sound, with very unpleasant results - see my own hearing problems. What is most important is the understanding and support of the people around.

Support for hyperacusis does exist. Although the advice is really useful, by no means all of it applies to people who also have hearing loss. The distinction that it makes between hyperacusis and recruitment fits my own experience perfectly - that the pain lies in the range of the hearing loss.

How to help someone with sensitive hearing

Click here for How to help someone with sensitive hearing.

How to  understand what the pain of sound sensitivity is like

Someone with normal hearing can get an idea of what the pain of sensitive hearing is like from an analogy with seeing. Almost certainly at some time or another a really strong light has unexpectedly been shone into their eyes, like when the sun reflects from a driving mirror as the car turns a corner. It produces a searing pain behind the eyes from which they immediately recoil. Hearing recruitment is similar but felt in the ears and, for me and others like me, it is many orders of magnitude stronger.

To continue the analogy, just as turning up the brightness of lighting can cause headaches and discomfort. So turning up the volume of sound can cause pain and distress. 

Sound sensitivity can be so severe that the person concerned collapses in shock.