Does anyone else suffer from this? I suffer from quite severe pain/discomfort when there are a lot of stong background noise going on (e.g. the kids shouting at each other; in a very crowded environment where lot’s of people are having simultaneous conversations), it makes me feel very isolated as I can’t concentrate on anything when it is occurring (I have to sit in a corner alone in a family gathering as I can’t make out what people are saying usually) and angry/irritable (I try to sit in discomfort when the kids are playing noisily but sometimes I lose restraint and end up shouting at them to be quiet).
On top of everything MS does to me it causes a lot of depression since it prevents me from interacting in a lot of normal social situations.
hi red,i have this-its great aint it ----in fact i posted 5 days ago asking the same question even the same title.Its horrible i dont think any description can do it justice.Do u have a diagnosis? i dont but its the only thing that matches i can find.
It gets me a lot when background noise becomes the foreground noise and vice-versa.GREAT for earwigging (I cant hear person talking to me but i can hear someone whispering in the corner)
u can often see me leave a crowded room then i feel mad and alone so i know how ya feel
I cant be in the same room as someone hoovering either lol
Hi, i had to google the condition, I hadn’t heard of it. I found it interesting, as I learned something about my own impaired hearing problem. I apologise if this comes across as insensitive to your problems, as I really don’t mean to be like that.
I have every sympathy for you, after reading how serious a condition it can be.
Have you had any kind of counselling, to help you cope in those really difficult times, when all the noises become unbearable? Counselling is one of the suggestions to manage hyperacusis.
In my own case, having just one ear with good hearing, I often don’t know where sounds are coming from, miss out on conversation and TV dialogue, etc. Then there are times when louder noises actually hurt both ears.
I daresay little or no understanding of this problem leaves you at a loss.
Background noise? All noise!!! can’t handle strong noise in any form - generally just run away from it…- and yes another thing that increases the isolation Ms can so easily inflict. My hearing I think is very good, but in a busy (party) situation it just becomes noise + nothing makes sense > panic attack!!!
Thank you so much for mentioning this condition. I just thought that this was an example of my poor hearing (I wear 2 hearing aids) and general “miserable old s**-edness”.
I just can’t cope with multiple sound sources (even my husband trying to speak to me when the TV is on causes extreme confusion and irritation). I cannot bear the sound of children (babies crying or youngsters squealing when playing) it causes me to wince with genuine pain.
I also find that I simply cannot understand children and youngsters (particularly girls). High pitched voices just go through me like nails on a blackboard and cause me genuine pain. It is so bad that some adult accents cause me issues with groups of females being impossible for me to cope with. I live in South Wales and whilst I have no issues with - for example - Swansea or Llanelli accents, Cardiff and Valleys accents cause me real problems to the point where I have been known to walk out of a particular local resteraunt when a group of women come in. (People in Wales will know the difference but Cardiff and the Valleys do have particularly high pitched “sing-song” accents for women)
This is NOT a joke or me being anti-Welsh or anti Women or children it is a genuine issue. I didn’t know that it was a genuine condition and I certainly didn’t know that it could be connected to my MS. I always belevied that my hearing loss was connected to MS in some way but neuros have always been quite dismissive when I raise that with them.
Just to confirm, I don’t walk out of the local restauraunt when a PARTICULAR group of women come in - it’s any group of (young) women. I am not in a feud with any locals!