Some sounds are extremely painful

The technical term for painful sound

There is a medical term for sensitivity and pain caused by sound and associated with hearing loss. It is hearing recruitment or just 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 hearing loss. These days, medics tend to combine recruitment and hyperacusis together and treat them similarly.

Symptoms of painful sound

A sure sign of sensitivity to sound is how the person concerned uses a television controller (television remote). Their fingers seldom stray far from the volume control which gets adjusted constantly as the volume or pitch changes. (I have worn out several controllers over the years, way before the television itself needed replacing - see my hearing.)

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.

Recuitment or hyperacusis which is painful is entirely different from tinnitus or ringing in the ears.

How to understand what the pain of sound is like

Someone with normal hearing can get an idea of what the pain of sensitive hearing is like from an analogy with sight. 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 times stronger, sometimes to the point of causing collapse.

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. This is what happens to me on occasions.

Medical treatment for severely painful sound

The problem of severe sensitivity to sound does not seem to have received much effective attention from medical researchers. One suggestion given to me from a top hearing-support establishment 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 hearing loss.

However, medical treatment is improving, and I shall shortly be adding a page on my experiences of it.

How to cope with sensitivity to sound

For anyone who experiences severe sensitivity to sound, coping with it has to be a way of life. My ear protection is always with me, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

Obviously a balance has to be struck between using ear protection and being able to listen to what people are saying. This is not easy: it can be very upsetting to feel forced to wear hearing protection while a conversation is going on that one wants to be part of.

Occasionally of course 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.

Since my hearing has deteriorated so much that I do wear hearing aids for some of the time, the problem has eased. This is because modern hearing aids can be programmed to cut out sound above a certain loudness.