Theme: Sensitive hearing plan: What is hyperacusis? The features of hyperacusis?

SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES
What are the symptoms of hyperacusis?
With hyperacusis, you may experience sounds other people consider normal as uncomfortable, unbearably loud, painful or even frightening. The loudness may be mildly annoying or so intense that it causes you to struggle with your balance or experience seizures.
Other symptoms may include:

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  Ringing in your ears.
  
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  Ear pain.
  
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  A feeling of fullness or pressure in your ears (similar to being in an airplane, before your ears “pop”).
  

These symptoms can negatively impact your mental health and social life. The constant experience of feeling overwhelmed with intense, unpleasant sounds can lead to:

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  Anxiety.
  
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  Depression.
  
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  Relationship issues.
  
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  Social isolation and avoidance.
  

Symptoms may intensify if you feel stressed or tired or if you anticipate having to interact in spaces that you fear will be unpleasantly loud.
What causes hyperacusis?
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes hyperacusis. It’s likely that the structures in your brain that control how you perceive stimulation make sounds seem louder. With hyperacusis, your brain perceives sounds as loud regardless of their frequency — or whether the sound falls in the low range (like thunder rumbling), medium range (like human speech) or high range (like a siren or whistle).
Various theories exist. It’s possible that damage to parts of your auditory nerve causes hyperacusis. Your auditory nerve carries sound signals from your inner ear to your brain so you can hear. Another theory is that damage to the facial nerve causes hyperacusis. The facial nerve controls the stapedius muscle, which regulates sound intensity in your ear. Many conditions associated with hyperacusis (Bell’s palsy, Ramsay Hunt syndrome and Lyme disease) involve facial nerve damage.
Still, there isn’t a single cause that explains all cases of hyperacusis. Instead, it’s associated with multiple possible contributing factors and conditions.
Contributing factors include:

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