25 Oct Rare and Fascinating Hearing Disorders
This week on the Sound Advice blog, we highlight a different rare hearing condition each day.
Misophonia
Misphonia, meaning literally “hatred of sound”, is believed to be a neurological disorder characterized by negative experiences triggered by specific sounds. The sounds can be loud OR soft (e.g. phonophobia is the fear of loud sounds).
The disorder comprises a unique set of symptoms, most likely attributable to neurological causes unrelated to hearing-system dysfunction. It can be described as an immediate and extremely negative emotional response accompanied by an automatic physiological flight response to identifiable auditory stimuli. The disorder disrupts daily living and can have a significant impact on social interactions. People who have misophonia are most commonly angered, and even enraged, by common ambient sounds, such as other people clipping their nails, brushing teeth, eating crushed ice, eating, breathing, sniffing, talking, sneezing, yawning, walking, chewing gum, laughing, snoring, typing on a keyboard, whistling or coughing; certain consonants; or repetitive sounds.
