Covid changed my life
I got infected by Covid-19, even though me and my wife stayed pretty much isolated from our normal life. All music venues and theatres were closed during the pandemic here in Sweden, just like in the rest of the world. I tried to avoid meeting people as much as I could, and I believe I got the infection at a grocery store or any of the other rare situations where I could not totally avoid meeting other people.
When Covid hit me, it was like a disease like no other I’ve experienced before. If you imagine a regular autumn cold – but 100 times stronger. I was totally passed out in my bed at home for 2 weeks, and at some point, I was really worried when my breathing started to get difficult.
I had a really difficult time in my bed at home, and at the same time i was so grateful that I did not have to spend that time at the hospital. There were lots of people having a far more serious conditions of Covid than me, and many people fought for their life and needed assistance to breath in respirators. And with so many deaths around the globe in this pandemic – all I could feel was a feeling of gratitude, that I did not get any more sick than I did, that I could be treated at my home.
That was the easy part of Covid for me.
After Covid I kept feeling tired and dizzy. If I had a walk, I was totally exhausted and needed to take a nap to make the day work at all. At that time, I learned a new medical term; post-Covid condition.
A large group of people are suffering from their Covid infection long after the disease has disappeared. I was struggling with tiredness and fatigue as my big post-covid symtoms. Post-covid has for me at occasion also showed up as brain fatigue (having difficult understanding complex texts), head ache, and depression to some degree.
Covid affected my hearing
But the biggest post-covid issue for me was that it affected my hearing. I started to notice that my tinnitus got stronger than what it used to be. I know my tinnitus very well, so I certainly can tell the times it gets stronger, which in normal cases happens during stressful situations, during heavy physical training/work or during noisy environments.
But now, I noticed that my tinnitus where remarkably stronger all the time. Even without the reasons I mentioned above.
I also noticed that I had developed hyperacusis, which is when you get super-sensitive for certain types of sounds. Hyperacusis cause these sounds to sound distorted, loud and harsch to me. The sounds that trigger my hyperacusis where sounds that were not loud or dangerous at all, but rather seems to be in a specific frequency range. In the morning I cant stand the sound of paper bags for fresh bread, running water or turning page on a newspaper, or grinding coffee beans. When I hear these sounds, even at a low volume it immediately triggers my tinnitus to start screaming in my ears. These sounds, are to my ears distorted, harsh and just painful.
Before Covid, sounds like small waterfalls and rivers in the nature where beautiful and peaceful – now I am trying to stay away from these sounds, since they are right in the frequency field where my hyperacusis are, and they give me a terrible experience. That is just so sad. Some of the sounds that I used to love – I now can’t stand at all without feeling pain and discomfort.
That is just sad.
After analyzing the sounds that trigger my hyperacusis, i notice that these sounds are in the frequency range of 2-4 Khz, and above. It is quite interesting to analyze the every day sounds, since as a sound engineer and sound artist, I had never thought of what properties they actually have. I measure frequencies of music all the time, but never every day sounds in the environment.
The sound of running water, had a frequency response that I never thought of before. Frequency response measurements with the software Smaart show that the sound of running water is mostly about 3 Khz and above, with a peak at 8 Khz and 16 Khz. At least that is the response in our kitchen-sink, with that specific water mixer tap installed in our kitchen. I guess each kitchen has it own frequency curve at running water.
One of the worst sounds of them all for me in this condition, is when open and rustling these Polypropylene (plastic/metal) bags for potato-chips. Their frequencies start around 1 Khz and has a terrible peak at 8 Khz that are just killing me.
– Yeah I know, potato chips are not healthy to me any way so now I could make some joke about that this could be a good way to stop eating them… but in reality, I get sad when realizing that something that is supposed to be enjoyable and make me feel good, instead makes my ears scream of pain. Like the paper bags that I get with freshly baked bred from the baker in the morning – now I am trying to avoid them.
The sound of turning page on a newspaper is also painful to me, and something that I am going to stay away from. It has more of mid frequencies, and at 400 Hz it starts to raise and have peaks around 1.3 Khz, 2 Khz and 3,2 Khz that are extremely painful to my ears.
Now I keep earplugs close to me in the kitchen, to use for certain tasks when preparing my breakfast, to avoid to get a bad start of the day, while doing anything of what I mentioned above.
The more I read about post-covid symptoms I realized that many people where suffering greatly increased tinnitus, hyperacusis and hearing loss as a result after a covid infection. So it seems like that would be the case for me as well.