ENT Surgery

Audiology

Hyperacusus is a health condition characterized by over-sensitivity to certain frequency and volume ranges of sound, a collapsed tolerance to usual environmental sound. A person with severe hyperacusis has difficulty tolerating everyday sounds, some of which may seem unpleasantly or painfully loud to that person but not to others. It can be acquired because of damage sustained to the hearing apparatus, or inner ear. There is speculation that the efferent portion of the auditory nerve has been affected, efferent meaning fibers that originate in the brain which serve to regulate sounds. This theory suggests that the efferent fibers of the auditory nerve are selectively damaged, while the hair cells that allow the hearing of pure tones in an audiometric evaluation remain intact.