Inordinate sensitivity to sounds.
Abnormally acute hearing.
A condition in which someone is very sensitive to sounds.
A rare hearing disorder producing extreme sensitivity to noise, including normal environmental sounds, affecting people of all ages and usually accompanied by ringing in the ears. The disorder may affect one or both ears. People who have hyperacusis have difficulty tolerating sounds that do not seem loud to others—for example, the sounds made by running water from a faucet, by a car’s engine when driving, by footsteps on leaves, or by handling paper. The condition is usually caused by sudden or prolonged exposure to loud noise or by head injury. It may be related to a breakdown in the fibers of the hearing nerve that originates in the brain and regulates or inhibits incoming sound. Hearing tests usually indicate normal hearing for people with hyperacusis, possibly because all of the hearing nerve fibers have not been damaged, leaving some hearing mechanisms intact and functional. People with symptoms of this disorder may be given a sound tolerance test before taking hearing tests because loud sounds on some tests may be painful and could aggravate their problem. Few treatments are available for hyperacusis. One promising treatment involves listening to a specific kind of white noise at barely audible levels for a period of time every day in order to retrain the damaged hearing nerves to tolerate normal levels of sound.
Hyperacusis refers to an overly sensitive sense of hearing. For individuals with this condition, exposure to loud noises can lead to ear pain or discomfort.