Noise sensitivity sometimes results in headaches and hangovers (hyperacusis). The sounds of people talking, honking cars, pots clanging, and printers printing can be very unpleasant. This level of cacophony is typically unbearable. There may be a link between being sensitive to noise and the following symptoms that happen often:
- Disabilities in hearing
- In some cases, people with throbbing headaches also have strange vision, especially on one side of the head, like seeing “squiggles” or flashing lights.
- Light hypersensitivity; hypersensitivity to bright light
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Unsteadiness
Treatment for noise sensitivity
At-home treatments for noise sensitivity are a possibility. A headache is a common cause of noise sensitivity, which can be annoying but is treatable, and it does not indicate hearing loss. A trip to the doctor is required whenever there is no obvious explanation for the onset or continuation of noise sensitivity. Under certain circumstances, the symptoms may point to ear damage as well as a loss of hearing that is irreversible. The following steps can be followed if you are wondering how to deal with noise sensitivity;
- To minimise your sensitivity to sounds, find a spot to rest that is dark and quiet.
- You can lessen the effects of being sensitive to noise by staying away from loud sounds or by wearing protective gear.
- Acetaminophen or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) will help if a migraine increases your sensitivity to noise. These medications are available over-the-counter. Excedrin, which has caffeine in it, is also helpful for people who suffer from migraines.
- Hydration, particularly after a hangover, has been shown to reduce sensitivity to noise.
The following therapies for noise sensitivity may be recommended if you see a doctor.
If you report being overly sensitive to noise, your primary care physician will do hearing tests and an otoscope exam on both of your ears.
- Your headache specialist might give you medicine for migraines to help you deal with how sensitive you are to noise.
- Hearing aids are something you should consider getting if your sensitivity to noise is also related to deafness.
- By gradually getting used to loud noises or by changing the way you act, you might be able to make your hearing more sensitive again.
Here is an interview we did with a deaf person that will help you understand what it’s like to be deaf.
How did you cope with your deafness?
To get control of my deafness, my family needed to be trained to address me directly. I made it a point to tell people to call out my name before they started talking to me. This gets my attention to make up for the fact that my hearing threshold is lower than average. I also taught myself to read lips as a form of compensation. If I could see the movement of their lips, I would have a much easier time understanding what they were saying. As a teacher at a high school, I experienced a great deal of self-consciousness about it when I was around my teenage students. It was a waste of my time to sit in on faculty meetings or any other event where I was a member of the audience since I could not comprehend what was being said. Because of the generosity of my friends and co-workers, I was able to make it through this difficult time.
When did you discover it?
At the age of seventeen, I began to experience hearing loss in one ear. By the time I was 22, I had severe hearing loss. At first, getting used to this shift in circumstances proved to be rather challenging. Things were slightly better for me when I had only some of my hearing. If I wanted to, I could focus all my energy on listening to music, which is one of my most cherished hobbies.
Nevertheless, by the time I turned 22 years old, I had already lost that. Adjusting to this life of silence was challenging for me. It is emotionally more taxing to lose something than it would have been to never have had it. There was not even the slightest sound that could be heard. However, as time went on, I became accustomed to it. I haven’t changed a thing about the way I live my life; I continue to be content, and I engage in all activities except listening to music. Or any other possible voices. I concluded that my material possessions do not matter. I believe that eventually you will get used to it.
I did.
What has changed in your daily life habits?
It is not exactly a relaxed social lifestyle to have to spend hours at a time interacting with friends and strangers in bars, pubs, local communities, and sports clubs while simultaneously being required to pay extraordinary attention to lipreading. Sometimes I suffer from migraines, headaches, and even more headaches. Since I am now an adult, I am relieved that I no longer have to experience the thrill of making new acquaintances. When I need to calm down, I go to my gin and tonic and a good paperback thriller as my safe places.
What kind of support did you get to deal with it?
In my younger years, it was humiliating and awkward, and I remember feeling like I stood out quite a bit. Nonetheless, I was eventually persuaded to obtain hearing aids. My entire universe was altered, and I was suddenly able to take part in almost everything. Even though I have really bad hearing, I can take part in conversations even in noisy environments thanks to the significant advancements that have been made in hearing aid technology since then. My modern hearing aids can effectively eliminate background noise. Although not a total recovery, there has been a significant improvement in most symptoms. I want to emphasise this particular aspect. It is not the hearing aid itself that is responsible for the effectiveness of the device.
The audiologist matches your specific hearing loss with the hearing aid’s settings. Find the greatest audiologist you can, since if you don’t, you’ll wind up spending a fortune on hearing aids and yet not being happy with them. Be sure to put the aids through their paces in each environment before you buy them. If you want to determine how well you can hear in a noisy situation, one way to do so is to spend a few minutes in the noisiest area you know, such as a bar.
After that, you should contact an audiologist and get on with the process regardless of how well (or poorly) you can hear. Before you acquire it, please put in a request to have it reset in the regions that you require. I hope everything works out well for you. This so-called benefit is quite frustrating, as most hard-of-hearing people cannot understand it. I wish you the very best of luck and my warmest wishes!
Is it comfortable?
When I am alone and hear a bang or thump, I turn off my hearing aids for no apparent reason. When I get concerned, I turn off my hearing aids. It’s almost like protection for me that I can’t quite put my finger on. Deafness is undesirable. I faced discrimination at work because of my inability to hear the phone. My adversary would not wish my mental health issues on me due to discrimination. Being deaf in a hearing family means no one can relate to my experiences. I struggled in school because I could not hear what the teachers were saying, but I was not taught British Sign Language at home, so I was forced to lip-read. Consider how isolated that may have felt. After studying BSL, I quickly became proficient.
