I know lyme can make your hearing and sense of smell hyper sensitive -- it has for me, definitely.
But it also seems that I'm hyper sensitive to other things. I get grouchy/snappy really quickly. Some things just annoy me so much now.
And this might have to do with the extra sensitive hearing, but whenever someone does something like cough, it gets me really annoyed.... and it shouldn't. It didn't before I had lyme (not from what I can remember).
Yesterday, my husand and I were on a bus ride, and there was a couple sitting a few seats up who kept coughing. It really got on my nerves. It's insane that it bothered me so much. Maybe it was the sensitive hearing but also the fact that the lady had a cold and it worried me that I may catch it. I don't know, but I'm super sensitive to everything nowadays it seems.
Does something as stupid as coughing or sneezing get on anyone's nerves here? Maybe I'm just crazy...
Also going to the store where lots of people are around bothers me as well. Too many people around just irritates me.
Posted by LymeCFIDSMCS (Member # 13573) on :
Yes! I am so hypersensitive to light/noise/sound/vibrations I can almost never be around other people. Someone's movement in another room exhausts me and neurologically shorts me out. But the stuff you're talking about is true for me too. I can spend all day irritable about some tiny thing, and the smallest things make me almost lose my mind.
It's a neurological symptom.
Either that, or people have just gotten a LOT more irritating!
Posted by daise (Member # 13622) on :
Sound sensitivity, yes. A popular symptom.
For me, one good thing about being single and living alone was that the sound sensitivity was less than if I lived with someone!
Lyme stress makes it worse. Oh ya!
Then each obnoxious sound (and a whole lot of city/societys sounds are obnoxious sounding) brings it's own horror of Lyme stress.
Rusty cymbals.
Our brains are in mayhem.
I also had touch sensitivity at my fingertips, for example, when I typed, it directly hurt in my brain. A neurologist told me that that was not possible.
Oh yes it is!
daise Posted by Clarissa (Member # 4715) on :
Yes, yes and YES!!!!
This is meant to make you laugh so please don't think I'm mean-spirited.
I LOVE my Mother and since she and I have both been ill, she's been living with me.
When we eat dinner, especially eating chicken, she has this one capped tooth that makes this squeaking noise that makes me INSANE. She also scrapes her teeth against the fork.
I finally had to confess it to her because she wanted to know why I was always so quiet and brooding at dinner.
Then, there are her slippers against the tiled floor. I can hear them a mile away. Slip, slip, slip, slip...I practically needed a xanax during my herx-slipper-hearing times.
And the smell of her moisturizing cream! PUKE!
My poor Mom...I tried to keep most of it in but then she confessed that the smell of my candles and air fresheners wanted to make her puke...as well as my irritable/grouchy/bitter attitude.
The WORST for me was (and still is sometimes) the doorbell and the phone ringing...just the worst.
Anyway, this is totally normal and it DOES get better!!
Best,
Posted by daise (Member # 13622) on :
PEEEEEEEEENG!
What about metal rubbed past metal?
I thank God my apartment doorbell was broken.
daise Posted by TerryK (Member # 8552) on :
I have this off and on too. It gets really bad during herxing. Levaquin has kicked it up to a new level.
For me, the fingertip sensitivity is related to inflammation. If I add things to help with inflammation, it goes away.
The feeling of overwhelm around people - and the feeling of brain overstimulation was helped greating by magnesium. I learned about that connection from a tape that I watched by Dr. Paul Cheney, a CFIDS doctor.
I equate the sound sensitivity to herxing and toxicity. Detox, detox, detox.
Haven't figured out the rest of it but I keep looking.
Terry
Posted by Dawnee (Member # 15089) on :
You aren't the only one. I have severely sensitive hearing. I actually get goose bumps when one of my kids talks even remotely loudly and I can barely stand for them to be loud at all. My husband sneezes and I get absolutely TICKED OFF. I tell him he sneezes too loud, it literally makes me grit my teeth...but really I know I am over reacting somehow. His sneezing doesn't bother anyone else! But I get so mad and irritated. I've even demanded in a fit that he leave the room whenever he has to sneeze (lol..ya think thats asking a bit too much?)
I have been super sensitive for years with my hands and feet... can't stand for them to rub on carpet, sometimes can't stand for my hands to touch rough fabrics or even sometimes my own hair. I use to love to crochet, but I can't now because the feeling of the yarn irks me so bad.
The hearing thing seems to have only been the last few years. But I have other weird hearing issues as well (loud noise to the left and I'll go running to the right, sure it came from that direction etc)
Dawn
Posted by chamade (Member # 11472) on :
I have had issues with hypersensitivity since I was a kid. Can't stand noises, eyes hurt in bright environments, brisk knee reflexes, getting really mad at someone for no good reason etc. I guess the neuropathy that I developed a year ago is just another manifestation of the damage to my nervous system - now my skin is hyper sensitive too.
Posted by bettyg (Member # 6147) on :
yes, majority of the above quoted!
BEING STARTLED; i have to catch and settle down my heart beats!
smells! perfume, cologne, hairspray, aftershave, cigarettes & "smoke" on their clothing is worst!; diesel fuel, cleaning supplies, office supplies like "wite out" for typos, heavy duty markers for signs, some foods like Chinese for me!
lights, GLARE, REFLECTION....we live in a morgue; total darkness on SUNNY DAYS! i love the overcast, rainy days; i can have my shades open and look out.
JIGGLING COINS IN POCKETS! i've asked many men to please stop that and take their hands out of their pockets! many are so offended!
noise .. LOUD TV COMMERCIALS AND SWITCHING STATIONS drives my ears insane! migraine time! Posted by DakotasMom01 (Member # 14141) on :
I have this too.
I am like Betty with all the odor problems.
Posted by ElaineC (Member # 9857) on :
Yes, I have the crazy odour problems also - perfume drives me insane!!!!
Posted by klutzo (Member # 5701) on :
Me too. It is strange things that bother me, while other things don't.....
The sound of the dogs eating their food made me want to run out of the house screaming and hit something. Both dogs passed on last year, and I miss them a lot, but I sure don't miss their chewing noises.
My husband cracking his knuckles or tapping his feet or eating popcorn...aarrrggghhhh!
I have found high dose (2 grams) L-tryptophan to be very helpful, as well as a good pair of ear muff style noise protectors....the industrial kind.
Klutzo
Posted by not so sublime lyme (Member # 15185) on :
Yes, yes, yes to all the above odor and sound sensitivities.
And greatly increased during pregnancies--even newsprint made me sick.
My kids are now teens and laugh at me in the grocery store when they hear people whistling as they shop.
They know it drives me crazy and I am too introverted to ask the whistlers to stop.
I have resorted to giving them the "evil eye" which just makes me look like a lunatic. I can't believe that I can get so angry at some poor soul who's whistling a happy tune.
LETS OUTLAW PUBLIC WHISTLING (and change jiggling)!
Posted by jamescase20 (Member # 14124) on :
YES to everything I can think of, but I am treating now and seems to be dropping off slowly.
Posted by Polaris (Member # 11391) on :
Yes,
Super sensitive smell, was good before, now it is off the chart. I can't stand loud noises anymore, although that could be just getting older, lol.
Posted by daise (Member # 13622) on :
For me, it's sound and touch (fingertips)sensitivity.
The sensitivity gets much better or leaves, everybody, with good treatment, but for BettyG because she's had Lyme almost 4 decades.
Maybe others can't be rid of Lyme either, for various reasons: they got treatment too late, or their brain and body has circumstances that just can't be rid of it, etc.]
My touch sensitivity went away when Bell's palsy went away (4 months.)
I'm in the middle of treatment and my sound sensitivity has improved a great deal.
daise Posted by wantabe (Member # 14703) on :
I certainly can relate to all the irritants, but times them by 98 6th grade preteens making every possible body noise and odor. Some days I think I'm going to implode teaching!
Trying to concentrate enough to teach a lesson while each student is smacking gum, clicking pens, tapping feet, and humming softly makes my Lyme brain hostile. (Not to mention every possible body odor imaginable is released by the minute)
I'm doing my best to keep them motivated enough to listen and learn, but I'm surly not being voted teacher of the year when it comes to warm and fuzzies!
PLEASE tell me this will get better!
Wantabe...able to ignore
Posted by bettyg (Member # 6147) on :
wantabe,
wow, i'd never given that any thought; i don't envy you teaching with all those sensitivities HAPPENING ALL AT ONCE and florescent lights!
well, WANTABE, YOU'RE "OUR LYME TEACHER OF THE YEAR"! we're more than 98 students; so our votes count more ... we're walking in your shoes! hang in there; 6-7 wks. left until schools out! Posted by KauaiGoddess (Member # 11782) on :
Aloha,
YES YES YES!!!
Pretty much everything everyone described!
ohhhh car fumes, I used to ride in the car with my shirt over my face!!!!gag at strong smells!
I couln't do laundry cause the SEVENTH GENERATION detergent was too TOXIC smelling!
I remember, in the begining, covering my ears, asking my family not to YELL at me...(they were just talking) I felt like everyone was YELLING!
Oh- dishes!!! clank clank clank!
If someone is on the phone talking, the TV's on, and dishes clanking...I LOOSE IT!
One of these alone is hard, but all together- I'm goners! It's like sensory overload!
I never left the house for months cause I couln't stand to be in public! and when I did, I'd dread every minute, till home again!
I have to get out of the house- ASAP!!!!!!!
THe good news is these are improving with treatment...smiles...
much Love and Light and STRENGTH~ Fawne
Posted by ericaf (Member # 10929) on :
I'm hypersensitive to smells!I get dizziness and spasms in my head from smells.
Noises too...plates,boyfriend coughing,cat meowing stupid things like that.. Thank God the light doesn't affect me so much..
Posted by oxygenbabe (Member # 5831) on :
Noise really bothers me now, and smells. But the sensitivity is weird because noises sound louder to me and I can smell all kinds of things. So it doesn't just seem like sensitivity, it seems like I actually have more acute senses. Like I developed the nose of a dog and the ears of a bat.
Posted by luvdogs (Member # 9507) on :
DM,
Yes, sight, sound. light, noise, emotional, touch - everthing, you name it!
This is normal for many of us, but not very pleasant.
Posted by Hot socks (Member # 14557) on :
Hi! Yes I also had that problem but didn't realize till I was on doxy. That really made everything hard to see and hearing fans or helicoptors anything that goes around in circles.
Posted by SmurfyMom (Member # 13688) on :
Oh but YES!
My poor kids. They are no longer allowed gum at all. It just HURTS my ears, even with their mouths closed.
Also their heels hitting the floor. They probably think I'm a loop... "PLEASE walk gently" I beg.
Lips smacking is another big one. I can NOT stand to hear my son kiss the dogs. It's not that he's kissing dogs, but that he is making a sound with his mouth.
Artificial blueberry anything gives me a headache and drives me nuts. Sausage smelling anything makes me want to hurl.
And I KNOW there are many, many others, but guess what? I can't remember squat right now. What else is new? *sigh*
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because she's had Lyme almost 4 decades.