Hypersensitivity to sound - I'm going crazy!

I guess I've always been a little oversensitive to certain sounds and to noise in general, but this has never been so bad before. I feel like I'm slipping into insanity. I don't know what to do.

I live in an apartment building and I can often hear my upstairs and next door neighbors. AND IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY. Oh and no, it's not like my neighbors are partying or something - those are just the sounds of everyday normal life. During the day I don't notice that as much, the problem usually starts around bedtime. My upstairs neighbors apparently like to talk until late at night - they talk loudly, in a high pitched voice (women), they laugh, walk around a lot etc. I hear all this like it's the loudest noise in the world, like they are elephants playing football right over my head, I cannot sleep or focus on anything. It makes me so aggravated I sometimes wish I was deaf (I know, it's horrible) or fantasize about hurting those noisy people. I get so nervous my stomach curls into a ball. My boyfriend who lives with me has no problem with such sounds and probably thinks I'm nuts, it's barely noticeable for him (and even if so, it's just harmless background noise).

Funny thing is, I've had a construction site right in front of my apartment's windows for a couple months and it doesn't annoy me as much as my neighbors. It's usually the sounds generated by other people that make me so agitated. I cannot function like this. I tried using earplugs, but it's hard to sleep with them as well, it's uncomfortable (maybe I could get used to them with time). How crazy is that? I'm slowly losing it, I'm afraid one day I'll just go and yell at my neighbors for talking/walking too loudly, lol...

I'm 4 weeks into my abx treatment if it's of any relevance. Will this hypersensitivity ever go away? Can it be cured like other symptoms of Lyme? I've been also having frequent anxiety attacks recently and I'm feeling rather depressed. I don't know if it induces/intensifies the hypersensitivity to sound or it's the other way around. I just feel like a mess and I really need to talk to someone who might understand (unlike every person around me)...

Yes a sneeze or a blender has made my ears ring ...some abx are ototoxic ..zith make that oh so fun ringing even louder ..

I've been very noise sensitive for quite a long time, because of Lyme. I don't know the physiology behind it, but it's not just agitation at the people you may have an exaggerated startle response along with volume intensity swings.

Sitting while a train goes by and blows whistle sends me shrinking to the floorboards in agony.
Quirky habitual noises people make drive me up the wall. Dogs barking cause shocks to run through me. Gun shots 5 acres away send me right out of my chair.
One day the tv won't be loud enough, or the radio/cd player, other days it's way too loud set on low and I make it even lower.

Music or noise from anywhere while I'm trying to sleep puts me in a
foul mood too, with thoughts of revenge.

Stupid Lyme & co.

April_Ryan, you might find this link interesting: www.tiredoflyme.com/bizarre-hearing-symptoms-of-lyme-disease.html

If you read the link, take note that there is some disagreement between whether Bartonella is the cause of this, or Babesia.

Post Edited (julymorning) : 11/21/2016 6:27:16 PM (GMT-7)

Hey! just a related symptom!!!!! :D

Guess what....I developed a phobia to the sound of thunder!

talk about weirddddd...you don't know how bad it is LOL. i must stop all activities and can't fall asleep.

At times its gone and back again i think...im thinking BABESIA!

Lymedriven,

Let me know if you add it in and how it is for you. That's on my list. I have one to add in before that then Sida.

Thunder! Oh no. Doesn't bother me at all. Maybe my dog has Babs.

You need a white noise machine.'

Thank you all for your time and replies. Last night was terrible for me (neighbors chatting and laughing until 2 AM at least) but ear plugs turned out to be a big help. I guess eventually I will get used to have them on at night.

It's really weird, because not only I can't fall asleep hearing those noises, they also wake me up when I finally do. My boyfriend - who sleeps next to me in the same bed - usually gets up and goes to the bathroom several times during the night and I'm not even aware of it, but as much as a few steps or a single burst of laughter of my upstairs neighbor wakes me up immediately. It really seems crazy. The walls in my building are not even that thin, it just looks like I'm oversensitive to these specific sounds and my ear can pick them up like a radar.

It seems I'm actually developing a phobia to those sounds. Sometimes I catch myself lying in bed all nervous and thinking 'ok, the noises can start any minute now', then almost crying when they do. I have bad experience from one of my previous apartments - I used to have those weird upstairs neighbors who had a little daughter with some issues, like she was hyperactive or something like that. They barely took her outside and all she was doing all day was running around the apartment and screaming. I was suicidal back then... There was no relief, no rest from it. So now every time I hear a sound even remotely similar to that I get extremely agitated. The thumping of someone's footsteps seems to be the worst, it can get me from super relaxed to almost screaming in pain in two seconds.

julymorning, thanks for the article, it is indeed interesting. I don't experience most of those symptoms though, it appears to be pretty selective for me. Yes, I'm sensitive to noise in general, but nothing is as big of a problem as hearing my neighbors. I can stand the construction going on outside my windows, the lawn mowers, even loud music, but suddenly another human being walking in their own apartment is too much for my nervous system to handle. It just makes no sense to me.

I tested negative for Babesia, but I know it doesn't mean I can't have it. I heard the tests for co-infections are rather unreliable. I'm seeing my LLMD tomorrow, maybe she'll have any info or advice for me.

Post Edited (April_Ryan) : 11/22/2016 2:32:30 AM (GMT-7)

Hi

I just wanted to relate a similar experience. I've also always been sensitive to certain sounds, particularly vibratory sounds, such as sounds of neighbors walking, banging, voices and tvs vibrating through walls. This was amplified when I became infected, and became increasingly unbearable, right in-line with the timeline of infection (July 2013). I also note that it's generally sounds from people, rather than lawn-mowers, etc.

April said...
It seems I'm actually developing a phobia to those sounds. Sometimes I catch myself lying in bed all nervous and thinking 'ok, the noises can start any minute now', then almost crying when they do. I have bad experience from one of my previous apartments

I know this is not the best answer to give, but the only thing that helped me was to move into my own house.

After two horrible experiences with upstairs neighbors, I found a small and quiet condo, on the top floor of a walk up with no shared walls and no upstairs neighbors, so I thought I was safe. For about a year it was great, then my super quiet downstairs neighbor decided to rent his condo to a loud couple that had non-stop overnight guests, music/tv on all the time, and they argued - A LOT. Even though it was below me their noise brought back all of my previous experiences and it got to the point where I felt like I was going insane, literally. I was getting increasingly agitated...hyperfocusing on every little sound. I would lie down to go to sleep waiting in fear that the noises would start any minute, and I would hear some sounds in my sleep.

Occasionally, earplugs (and loud fan) helped, especially preemptively so if any racket started I might not hear it. Most of the time however, it would be noisy through the evening, and then I would lie there in a state of stress, waiting for the next thud or crash. Plus, with earplugs I had to sleep with my alarm under the pillow in order to wake up on time. It just wasn't worth it anymore and I had the revelation that I don't need to stay there, so I decided that I HAD to move to a single house for my own health and well-being.

I will honestly say that it may not get any better. I had to come to terms with my very specific needs for a "home", which means no shared walls and no close neighbors. I know not all of us have that ability, and I exchanged a 15 minute walk to work with a 90 minute traffic commute each way, but the trade-off was far more than worth it for me.

You can't control what other people do, or live like, and that's part of the anxiety IMO...especially if you're more aware and considerate with your own "noise". You can control the situation by making certain adjustments, but they are not always a given, and aside from moving, are mostly temporary solutions to a continuous problem. Based on what I went through, the anxiety and distress just builds up and continues to hurt you. Even my coworkers said I became noticeably less "uptight" after moving.

I believe the Lyme or other infections as well as the ABX treatment are definitely going to amplify this already existing sensitivity, and it may never go away. I am 3.5 months into treatment now (I moved in July 2014) and while my "neighbor noise" problems have been resolved, I now have some random days/hours of extreme anxiety. It's like a whole body and mind thing. I can't imagine how I'd be responding if I was still living in a condo/apartment.

I now live in a rural area just outside of a suburban area, and as quiet as it is, sometimes the noise from a loud truck on the road (1/2 mile or more away) is so loud to me that I feel like it's right outside. That said, now I can deal with it, because it's fleeting, and it doesn't create the same sense of panic as the neighbor noise, which created a sense of being trapped with no relief.

I'm sorry you are dealing with this.

Post Edited (njfillet) : 11/22/2016 2:34:32 PM (GMT-7)

Huddie,

thanks for the kind words and for your tips. I'll try Yogi tea and passionflower. I also already ordered L-Theanine to give it a try.


njfillet,

your post was very helpful, even if it wasn't very optimistic (the part about moving) :) This is exactly as you said - it's sounds from people that 'trigger' me the most. But yesterday I figured out it's not only that I'm oversensitive to certain sounds, it's more like my brain is unable to ignore some of the sounds from my environment. Normally human brain filters the stimuli we receive - it makes us hear what's important and muffles out the rest, causing it to be perceived as 'background noise' or even imperceptible. I feel like my brain temporarily (I hope) doesn't know how to do that and I hear literally everything going on around me. Last night I tried to relax playing a video game with my boyfriend and I couldn't even focus on that - I was hearing all the noises: background music from the game seemed louder than dialogue (it wasn't, according to my BF), I could hear the boiling dinner pot on the stove, my cat cleaning herself, neighbors walking and my boyfriend chewing his dinner, all at the same time, with equal intensity. It feels like I've gained some unwanted superpowers, LOL.

Unfortunately moving into a house is not an option for me at the moment. But I grew up in a house in the suburbs and I'm thinking, maybe it influenced my sensitivity to sound. Our house and neighborhood was very quiet and peaceful, it's what I'm used to and moving to an apartment building was quite a shock for me, I admit. In fact I own an apartment on the top floor, with no shared walls, which is very quiet but I had to move to a different part of the city and rent it out, so I don't currently live there. It's a bit complicated, but at least I know I'm not stuck where I live now forever.

birthdaysuit,

so tetracycline resolved this problem for you? I was on doxy for a week, but I had to stop taking it due to an allergic reaction. I hope my doc puts me on some other abx which can help with such symptoms.

I have experienced this hypersensitivity to sound. I actually had it so bad that I had what is called hyperacusis. It stemmed from the Lyme induced trigeminal nerve damage I have on the left side of my face, which traveled into my left ear. It was like someone turned the volume up in my left ear only. I also heard sounds in a higher pitch.

/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperacusis

Luckily for me, they hyperacusis went away, however, I'm left with a vestibular disorder which causes disequilibrium.

I'm sorry you are going through this and I hope it gets better for you.