Our friend Julio Flores from Peru has been suffering from hyperacusis and tinnitus since 1992. This post will help us understand what hyperacusis feels like. In addition, at the end of the post you can see a testimonial video of Julio. We hope you like it:
Understand Hyperacusis thanks to Julio’s Testimony
“Hello dear friends, my name is Julio Flores Alberca, I am from Peru and since 1992 I have suffered from hyperacusis and I also have tinnitus.
On this occasion I wanted to tell you what it means to have hyperacusis, because sometimes it is difficult for people who have not experienced it, to conceive or imagine what it is like to have this hearing condition. But you could imagine what it feels like when you get a bad skin burn, and you can’t tolerate even a feather sitting on it, or the wind blowing over it. Other analogies that would graph the condition can be found here.
“You could imagine what it feels like when you get a bad skin burn, and you can’t tolerate even a feather resting on it, or the wind passing over it.. This degree of sensitivity can also be reached with enviromental sounds, when there is severe or even moderate hyperacusis.”
– Julio
This degree of sensitivity can also be reached with environmental sounds, when there is severe or even moderate hyperacusis. I’ve been through that experience and it really is terrible and traumatic. Currently my condition has returned to moderate, after many years of taking care of myself; but I still use hearing protection, because when I don’t have it on, after a short time I start to feel pain in my ears, first in the left one, which is the most affected, and then in the right. If unprotected exposure continues for much longer, the pain begins to spread to the top of the head, like a kind of migraine. In addition to this discomfort, the intensity of tinnitus also increases markedly.
Once protected again, I have to wait a few hours for the pain to subside little by little, and for the intensity of the tinnitus to also decrease. When my condition was more severe, the waiting time for these discomforts to pass was up to two weeks.
When I am not wearing hearing protection, afeter a short time I begin to feel pain in my ears and the tinnitus increases. Once protected, I have to wait for the pain to subside. When my condition was severe, this wait could take up to two weeks
I trust that this narrative will allow you to better understand what it means to have hyperacusis, and that, although it is an invisible disease, it is not at all something minor or that can be easily coped with. Until now there is no cure for it, so, once acquired, its permanence over time is unpredictable, being chronic in the vast majority of cases.
If you want to know more about my experience and the measures I took to face and cope with hyperacusis, you can visit my blog: Hyperacusis and me. Thanks.
Testimonial Video of Julio on television in Peru – Junta Médica
Below is a video of the Junta Médida program on TV Peru, where they treat hyperacusis and hypoacusis. The first 29 minutes are focused on hyperacusis, in which they present Julio’s case and two moments are included in the interview where Julio’s testimony appears: At minute 3:43 and minute 20:14
Documentary about Julio’s case of hyperacusis
Here we leave you the video of a documentary (an excerpt) produced by Carlos Santur Sánchez, a student of the Faculty of Communications of the Universidad Privada del Norte (Peru), and which discussed Julio’s experience and experiences throughout the 29 years that have passed since he suffered the first acoustic accident in 1992, which caused his hyperacusis and chronic tinnitus, until the documentary was broadcast in 2021.
We end with a message that Julio launches in this latest video:
“Although there are diseases that may be incurable, there may always be the possibility that the body will respond and recover, because the body has a great capacity for recovery. But it also makes a lot of how one relates to this condition: If one takes it in a negative way, it is likely that the disease will end up collapsing us; but if you relate to the disease in a more positive way, it is possible that you can resume your life, resume your activities.”
– Julio
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