I have these neighbors living very physically close to me, with 5-6 kids and for 5-6 hours of the day they do nothing but yell and scream louder than I'm sure a great deal of people would be able to if their lives depended on it. If I'm exaggerating its only very slightly. I've even developed mild tinnitus (at 20 yrs old) for some reason or another. However when I mention it to my family they make it sound like I am totally overreacting (most of the time). There also is one member of my family with a chronic medical ailment, who seems to view yelling about it as some kind of catharatic release... if its not one person yelling its someone else.

Whenever these happens I close all the doors and windows to my room till its a boiler, but the noise is still very loud and it disturbs the very little concentration I have. For that reason, it makes me feel very helpless, ... I can't even think about the kind of goals you do just to get through a day, and even if I am able I am in a state of constant irritation and just wishing I had Peace so I could use the very little concentration I do have and not end up feeling like time is just slipping by me and totally hopeless.

It's so maddening, because losing my ability to concentrate robs me of whatever fragile hope I've been able to develop. (sorry I've said that about 3 times )

Anyhow, not sure if I'm posting for sympathy or empathy or just to get it out. But sorry for all the venting.

Take Care,

john

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Originally posted by sunnyslumber: this noise sensitivity that is one of my symptoms totally knocks me down (but unfortunately not completely senseless).

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If I hadn't experienced it myself I would have never understood how horrible this particular symptom is. Many of us on Lymenet understand, but it is hard to get "normals" to comprehend it. I think noise sensitivity is ,for me, almost as disabling as fatigue and more disabling than pain. I wish I had some good suggestions.

What you are experiencing is a very common symptom of Lyme, and that symptom alone os enough to drive anyone up the wall, especially if they are living with people who don't understand.

If it's any comfort to you, mine spontaneously disappeared one day, even though I was not on any antibiotics at the time.

Your family think you're exaggerating about the noisy neighbours because to them it's not that noisy. You could ask them (one day when you're not in the room!) to turn the TV up to max and see how they like it. The explain that this is how it feels for you all the time.

I can't really offer you any other advice than to seek out a Lyme-literate doctor (if you haven't got one already). Are you in any position to move somewhere else? If you are in your own place, however small, you can control the noise level in your immediate surroundings, and you could seek out a place with old people or other quiet neighbours adjacent.

Lisa

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Originally posted by sunnyslumber:
Dear Everyone, I'm really exasperated because it seems whenever I've finally been catching and actually holding on to some feelings of hope (which came from who knows where ) this noise sensitivity that is one of my symptoms totally knocks me down (but unfortunately not completely senseless).
....john

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Noise drives me up the wall.

My family mocks me for it constantly, too. I let them. Though if I'm really cross it will annoy me.

I use fans -- at all times of the year -- to help drown out noise - the bathroom fan helps.

Make people turn down the TV, or turn it off if not watching.

I have to watch the microwave and before it DINGS, rush over and turn it off -- it startles me so badly even tho I KNOW it's going to do it.

I sometimes have to ask people to talk more softly as some people are too loud for me. People look at me really strangely for this so I mumble some excuse.

Hope you are able to insulate yourself somehow from your loud surroundings and have a little quiet in your head...

Ear plugs helped me as well. Especially at night when I could hear things like a dog barking down the valley, or a faucet dripping downstairs.

I use to have a neighbor that must have worked at a bar or something, because at precisely 2:25 every morning...his roosters would start to crow! This would set off my roosters crowing as well !

So...I would have to reach over to my nightstand and put in my ear plugs every single night at that time.

Now that I think of it...you would think that I would have remembered to put in the earplugs BEFORE I went to bed.

Oh well, it is funny how the lyme-brain works at times...or doesn't work .

The startle reflex is a bit more difficult to control, but I found that if I turned down the volume on my laptop and phones, and asked people not to come up behind me...then I would jump out of my seat far less often.

Concentration is a big problem with TBDs anyway, but I do understand how it is made much worse with constant interruptions.

It does get better with time though, so hang in there.

My best,
Melanie

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When the gardners come, I leave home.

I have tried ear plugs at times.

I have asked the neighbors to stop screaming or turn the music down, etc. I have two quiet neighbors and one noisey one.

I can close the windows and turn the air on. This helps.

I have tried talking also to the "guilty" parties who just do this to rattle my cage!

I have used suggestions others gave you as well.

I have worn also the construction type head gear & full of puff cotton balls.

If you can move, do and check out the next neighborhood better so you won't get a worse place than you do now.

NOTE: I'm now able to sleep with my windows open until the neighbor's 2 drag-racing/stock car racers get into their super souped up cars w/dragster mufflers! So that is progress.

Now I'm able to enjoy wind chimes again. Hey here's an idea. You could use duct tape on your neighbors mouths. They could continuing playing and you could get well.

It would be so strange because only certain sounds would drive me crazy. And then some sounds would scare the daylights out of me.

It gets better,

I even have to turn off all things plugged in at night to sleep. Even the refrigerator running would make me crazy.

I ride in the back seat of my friends car and they play the radio. But it is so loud to me and I had to say look it makes me physically sick when then things are at a certain sound level. They looked at me like I was nuts. Loud neighbors, leaf blowers, kids, my own dogs...but it does get better.

I really suggest white noise headsets. That helped me a lot. Boise has a good set. I even went to home depot and got the construction headgear, at least then all I heard was the ringing in my head.

I am grateful that I do have have a good llmd. However I just heard the medical board of our state is going after her which is awful.

I'll try the white-noise and noise-silencing headphones, and just being more persistant in asking at least the members of my family to be quieter & to not get loud all of a sudden, which still must make me look like a grouch.

Sometimes I wish I could move, but I surely don't have the finances to do so, which makes that out of the question for me.

One of the downsides of headphones/earmuffs for me, seems to be they seem to make the ear ringing more prominent even though they do cut down on noise a little. Thanks for the idea about stuffing them with cotton, never thought of that, maybe it will help them work better!

HaplyCarlessdave, interestingly enough I Was on flagyl (metrondiazole) for a period of a few weeks but it seemed to cause a lot of side-effects like problems with attention, thrush, some tingling & the ear ringing, which hasn't totally subsided and I've been off it for at least 3 weeks now.

Also. forgot to mention I also feel pain from time to time in the ear which is mostly responsible for the ear ringing, which is also something that didn't happen before, but I don't know what it means. The ringing also gets worse when I yawn, on that one side.

Does anyone know if those effects from flagyl are related to its killing lyme, or coinfections, or just a side-effect of the drug? It seemed to me there was a good enough chance that they could be just a side-effect of the drug for me to want to stop taking it.

Also if ear ringing was a side-effect for me, I wonder if the hyperacusis is also somehow related? I know I had it before, but it doesn't seem like to this extent. Does anyone know how long such side-effects would take to dissippate?

Anyhow, thanks much for everyone your encouragement~ Like you guys said, hopefully a relatively quick and complete treatment will provide the best method for dealing with this symptom also.

Oftentimes to me, it seems like one of the most ridiculous, bathotic, things in the world that such a great part of our beings and our capabilities for noble actions, resides so completely in our bodies which may be so easily attacked & wrecked by disease and hence those capabilities so effortlessly thwarted...

I suppose considering it that way, it's easy to see why for such a very long time people saw existence as a dichotomy of body and mind... that they would see the mind, and our being, which possess such an innate potential for "highness" and the body, which is so oftentimes rendered dysfunctional or grotesque, as two separate entities.

I guess we have a small degree of escape from this in that the good portions of ourselves we were able to use or express often can have good effects on others which can outlast our physical deaths, for at least a little while.

It does feel very sad that such a potentially great thing should be so tightly chained to such a weak thing. Very Un"natural." But all these thoughts have to pass through my mind so they are probably reduced to unintelligible mumbling, anyhow, as it is.

Much Thanks

Oh and don't get me started on smells.....

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