▷ Testimony of Hyperacusis in Chile – Kevin Gutiérrez

My name is Kevin Gutierrez, I live in Chile, I am currently 24 years old, I got this condition after attending a concert (Lollapalooza) at 18 (2017), I not only come to tell my experience, but to advise and try to help you.

The type of pain I feel is only inside my ears, it is really sharp, or sometimes with burning, it manifests itself after exposing myself to loud noises, or medium but prolonged noises, I spent a long time going to specialists, they did MRI, audiometry, and the worst of all, they put loud noises on me to see if it was a third window problem (to see if I would get dizzy from the sounds), they didn’t find anything, and I didn’t get dizzy from the noises, my pain is also not affected by my mood or stress, I have certain beeps that I hear but that is not a big problem in my case since they are not abundant

It all started after going to a concert, my ears felt sensitive but I did not take immediate action, because I considered the earplugs expensive, I continued going to university, which made my pain go from being small to enormous, my family insisted that it will end the first year of university, once I finished I sat in my room with pain that was almost permanent, and any noise made my situation worse, even if I dropped a drink lid, the first year of my isolation was very hard, I couldn’t even find silence because my neighbor took about half a year to finish building, that added to the trips to the doctor, kept me in constant suffering even though he used hearing protection, little by little I invested in better earmuffs, which helped me a lot, although the doctors and my family told me that I had to “get used to the noise“, they did not understand that even after listening to low music, I only experienced more fatigue in the long run, and they totally ruled out psychological pain, because I myself in On some occasions I thought I was cured, at least in one ear, only to find myself in pain again when listening to a lot of music, after 3 years of confinement, where I experienced various discomforts due to a sedentary lifestyle such as pain in the knees, visual fatigue from screens, pain tendons in my hands from being on the phone, I began to go out into the world, my father had made a contact for me so that I could work as a night guard, I have been able to be in this job without major discomfort, I have noticed that after a lot of silence I have I was able to listen to music once a week, I also had relapses, from which I learned, and besides, it happened to me that during the day I came home to sleep after work and in the morning the dogs barked, I used to put earplugs and earmuffs, but since I slept all day, I forgot to take out the earplugs, which caused the canal to suffer a lot and I couldn’t use them again for a long time. Don’t abuse the earplugs, prefer the earmuffs.

Silence really helps, even if others think it’s wrong, I use hearing protectors 24/7, the more silence I accumulate, the more noise I can tolerate, to follow that path you must have a lot of self-control, avoid listening to music or other multimedia content, please! as much as they want!, until they feel sufficiently prepared, whenever they are tempted, with ideas like “just these songs and that’s it”, “this movie is not that loud” remember this: it is a trap, an excuse, it ALWAYS ends up being more noise than we thought we would assume, think carefully that it is better to leave that for when we have more accumulated silence, for now I want to reserve 3 years or more, in which I will put up with listening to music no matter how good I feel, so I will be able to in the future I can do it again once a week but with less worries, and with better endurance to cover any unexpected occasion in which noises occur

👉🏼 Another tip:

When you reach that stage where you feel able to listen to music once a week or every other week, I recommend not limiting yourself to just that day, why? Why has it happened to me that I am excited to listen to it and instead of stopping? When I feel that I have already played many songs I think: “this is the only time I will listen to music this week, so, a little more”, better tell yourself to leave the other half for tomorrow even if it is not true ;).

To be realistic, none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for my understanding family, I know that not everyone can simply accumulate silence in their room, they have bills to pay, mouths to feed, or families that kick them out if they don’t contribute, For them, I only wish them the best of luck and if they decide to leave this world I will not judge them because I know that without silence this can only be torture that gets worse and worse, but please do not leave without having tried everything, invest in the best safety earmuffs you can, fight for that silence that helps us so much, and look for a job that suits you, learn a skill like programming that allows you to work remotely.

👉🏼 I also want to advise on that:

If you are looking for a job as a security guard, make sure it is not in warehouses where there is activity at night, the machines that carry the loads make a lot of noise when backing up, also, if you are offered to be in malls or supermarkets at night, I do not recommend it because although It may seem quiet, at night there are machines inside cleaning and people moving chairs, look for warehouses without nighttime activity or take care of offices, also avoid working with very large teams, since they communicate by radio and it is always ringing, preferably alone or with few companions.

Anyway, I tell you that with silence and being a night guard I have achieved a relatively normal life and I consider myself a happy person, that’s why I tell you that there is hope.

The best ear muffs that I have used are these, although don’t get carried away by the image, they are much larger, I leave the link to the specific product because although there are other identical ones on the platform, they vary a lot in terms of quality:

Friends, you are not alone in this, if you need to talk, ask for advice or just vent, my telegram is: granvasir