I can't stand loud noises either.. this used to not be the case before my symptoms started (I was also pregnant though, so I chalked it up to that).. I sometimes get a little ringing and deafness in an ear too - it lasts for about thirty seconds..
Alice- I agree, I used to be able to have talk over people , but it is exhausting now! My speech is worse by the end of the day if i have had to talk a lot or talk loudly..

I love loud noises. I crank up my electric guitar and let her roll.

Me too! It's interesting about the inner ear muscles - I had never considered you needed muscles just to listen! I think I cope better with louder noises when they're expected. A sudden or unexpected noise could cause me to collapse! It's amazing how just hearing the wrong sounds or being challenged by sound whilst engaged in another 'muscular' activity can cause the body to freak out...

It's not amazing at all. our senses are meant to give us information and warn us about our surroundings.
In the modern world we are taught from an early age to ignore most of this information. We also deceive our senses by creating artificial odors and tastes. When our ancestors lived in the jungle, a loud noise meant danger, not going into a discotheque.

My doc had a hard time believing that keeping from falling over into your dinner plate and washing of hair had anything to do with muscle weakness - and that problems swallowing could not possibly be related. So coming to the office with a pair of dysfunctional ears on top everything was not going to help my already dwindling credibility!

wild-cat & bny806….I have that exact same thing going on as well. Some of mine is due to noise exposure:

http://www.agius.com/hew/resource/nihl.htm

According to one ENT specialist I have hyperacusis AND recruitment which seems like two contradicting conditions.

Hyperacusis started (very memorably so) in pregnancy. It fluctuates. I can sometimes hear when a TV is just on standby in another room. Iīm not able to separate the conversation from the background noise either, Steph. And wild_cat, Iīm the same, protective reaction time to sudden loud spontaneous sounds is way too slow and so I reach the threshold of pain way too early.......

This thread has been really helpful. I'd been wondering what causes sound sensitivity.

The largest issue for me has been dealing with sounds over the cellphone. If my friend is cleaning or clanking things in the background while we're talking on the phone, I start jumping out of my skin and have to hold the phone away. We have an agreement now to hang up if he's going to run a blender or wash dishes etc.
Also, when he gets caught up in a story and starts talking in a higher pitch on the phone, I lose ability to understand what the heck he's saying.

Simultaneously, I've noticed a significant loss of hearing in my left ear. Prior to the diagnosis or having researched anything about MG, I was wondering aloud how I could be more sensitive to sound while simultaneously experiencing hearing loss.

I am still wondering about that!!!

I wonder if you can have hearing loss at a certain frequencies and sound sensitivity at others..........

I got a diagnosis of hyperacusis and recruitment many years ago.

ī3. Recruitment: This condition is ALWAYS a by-product of a sensorineural hearing loss. (If you don't have a hearing loss, you can't have recruitment.) A person with recruitment perceives volume increases much faster than the actual volume increase. As a result, sounds rapidly become too loud to stand. A hard of hearing person may have both recruitment and hyperacusis at the same time.ī

http://listen-up.org/med/hyperacu.htm

Those symptoms that you describe I had for years. Also taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and them clanking against each other in the cupboards was murder. Working with unpredictable decibels at my job was even worse.
(I was sent on a tinnitus course but couldnīt understand why as I didnīt have those symptoms)

It is odd that my own myasthenic weakness started to improve and my ears happily followed suit


Myasthenic ears???.......Impossible!!!!!!!!!!


Anacrusis

Hyperacusis is one sign of low B6 levels.

You can find many sites on the net about this.

My hearing has been going over the years. I get the loud roar in my head like I'm in a factory, or like a motor is running in my head, but I am also sensitive to sound. The other day my daughter was just talking and it seemed as though she was screaming, but she wasn't. I think the roaring noise is tinnitus, but I'm not sure. I always forget to tell the doctor about it since I've got too many issues already. I also get migraines, but the migraines are usually visual, without the headaches, and I noticed noise bothers me when I get the migraines. The visual disturbances were strange: seeing rainbows from both eyes followed by brief total blindness. Another time I saw geometric shapes that seemed to move towards a spiral and blocked my visual field for a few hours. So, I imagine sound can get pretty messed up with migraines too. I know my issues have nothing to do with the b vitamins because I take b vitamins every day. I also take cod liver oil for the noise and although it doesn't get rid of the roar, it helps.

I remember my hyperacusis started right bang in the middle of pregnancy.

I wonder if a few years later when I had 12 months of antibiotics circulating in my blood stream it probably didnīt help matters that much. In fact it probably didnīt help anything much after the infection. I read it can also deplete potassium and alter other processes.....(glucose/proteins)