I found a a description of a symptom that sums up perfectly how I feel sometimes but have never been able to explain. “Difficulty filtering out irrelevant stimuli.” Symptoms of Lyme can include multiple sensory sensitivities. This note is mostly about auditory sensitivities.
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Sensory hyperarousal occurs in about 50% of patients with later stage neurologic Lyme disease, most often affecting hearing and/or vision. These patients may resort to wearing earplugs, sound protectors, and/or sunglasses indoors. Normal sensory stimulation may over-stimulate, causing confusion and triggering a limbic alarm as if one had been assaulted. (1)
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Lyme disease patients can experience an extreme sensitivity to sound, also known as auditory hyperacusis. In some patients it is limited to louder sounds, but in the more severe cases “ordinary” sounds can be very debilitating. The impact can be felt throughout the body, and this condition can affect every aspect of daily living. Patients can experience heightened awareness and an inability to tolerate conversation, running water, page turning, the humming of electronic devices, other people’s breathing, etc. These normal everyday sounds become painful and unbearable, and as a result the individual’s ability to leave the home is greatly limited. Patients may also experience an increased startle response and an “electric shock” type feeling.
Sounds can also induce dizziness, and this is called Tullio’s phenomenon. According to Jenifer Nields, MD, “This peculiar short-circuiting of the inner ear’s auditory and vestibular functions is known as the Tullio phenomenon. This phenomenon has been deemed pathognomonic for syphilis but, as it appears, can occur in Lyme disease as well, and thus provides one more example of the “new great imitator,” Lyme disease, imitating the old “great imitator,” syphilis.” (Psychiatric Quarterly, Spring 1992)
Sometimes another central auditory processing disorder, tinnitus (buzzing or ringing in the ear), can accompany hyperacusis. Lyme disease patients can also experience sensitivities to light, smells, taste, touch, motion and/or temperatures. (2)
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Hyperacusis is also common in advanced lyme disease due to nerve inflamation and the neurotoxic nature of the spirochetal bacteria. If successfully treated, many lyme patients’ noise tolerance returns to normal. Elevated levels of mercury, lead or other heavy metals may also contribute to hyperacusis in some individuals. (3)
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1. http://www.columbia-lyme.org/patients/ld_lyme_symptoms.html
2. http://www.lymeinfo.net/hyperacusis.html
3. http://www.lumrix.net/medical/otolaryngology/hyperacusis.html
