[UpDownAround]

I have had tinnitus and hyperacusis for a long time. I thought they were totally physical and admitted having them even when I was in denial about bipolar. My hyperacusis has kicked up a notch and I was wondering if perhaps it had to do with latuda and searched for that. I found something that said the incidence was about 0.11 % but noted that was people reporting new symptoms because hyperacusis was often related to bipolar. Huh? So I poked around more.

This article (click) mentions the correlation along with something else I didn't know:

Hyperacusis is recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) published by the American Psychiatric Association. It is a health condition characterized by an increased sensitivity to ranges of sound, which leads to difficulty in tolerating everyday noise.

This can occur through brain and neurological damage where sensory information to the body is disrupted, creating neurological errors. There are many causes of hyperacusis including bipolar, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

So having bipolar and substance use disorder isn't enough; something I thought was a physical auditory issue is another mental health issue. The audiologist did hem and haw a little about the tinnitus and hyperacusis. I do have some hearing loss in the upper range (male pattern deafness) and he said it might contribute to the tinnitus, but about the hyperacusis he mostly just said "hmm". Now I know why. Hmm...

Anyone else?

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I struggle with hyperacuity all the time to some degree was and badly when my moods cycle. Last time I was in the hospital my roommate called it my spidey-sense amazed at what I could hear from other rooms, the nurses station, etc.

Just last week I was bothered by something in my therapists' office. we couldn't figure out what for a while and then he remembered he had a new clock. So he walked over and picked it up and if he held it right on his ear he could hear it while I was hating it for being so loud clear across the room.

And this afternoon a child playing with a wind-up toy in the waiting room at my pdoc's nearly made me cry in agony.

It is not my favorite symptom.

[Alisher]

I have hyperacusis when my manic comes. But I not suffering much from it. Moreover I found it sometimes useful because can evesdrop what people talk about me.

[UpDownAround]

I am in the midst of a long episode of expansive hypomania and the hyperacusis has really been a problem. One of the worst is getting all the kids to sit down to dinner together with us and then feeling like I need to leave the house. I am about ready to invest in a bark collar for the dog and I can barely hear my music over road noise in the car because I can't stand for it to be any louder. I am about ready to become a full time earplug wearer.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

These really help me when things are bad:
https://www.therapyshoppe.com/catego...utism-ear-muff

[Slightlydelusional]

I have tinnitus which is getting worse as I age. I need a noise machine to sleep and constant distraction noise to not notice.

I assume its connected to my issues with sinuses from a deviated septum. Just one more of my issues and glad I get relief from background noise.

[porcelainboy]

I have hyperacusis though it's generally attributed to general sensory integration dysfunction. I also have hearing loss, but I was born with it and it's low-range hearing loss. But I can say for sure that my sensory problems regarding sound got much worse as I grew older and began suffering from bipolar and CPTSD; before they were mostly every other sense besides sound, especially tactile.
So I can't be sure if the hyperacusis part is caused by my bipolar and CPTSD, but it's certainly not helped by it.

[scatterbrained04]

I get hyperacusis when I'm in a mixed episode. I used to get tinnitus when my anxiety was very high. I have permanent tinnitus and sensitivity​ to certain noises in my right ear now. Had a bad ear infection that ruptured my eardrum last year that caused it.

[UpDownAround]

I should have mentioned that tinnitus and hyperacusis have been 24/7 for years, but not like this. Ringing is loud and hyperacusis is sensitive at a much lower volume.

I wear adjustable (2 settings as they have an inner hole that can be plugged/unplugged) ear plugs to concerts and movies. At movies, I started getting a closed caption box because closing out the loud noises means I miss some dialog.

I wish the audiologist had been up front with me and told me the hyperacusis was likely a mental health issue. He said it didn't make sense given my test results, which are below normal in the high range but low normal in the rest, so I should be slightly less sensitive to loud noise than average. I was annoyed that he didn't want to test to find out what sound level caused me to wince.

[5150DirtDiva]

My hearing too gets wonky when I am manic too, interesting. I have tinnitus too, but I am pretty sure that is because I work on airplanes and the flight line is loud AF.