Pain from sound: Air horn blast gives Delaware teen rare hearing problem

The blast of an air horn inches from her ear 14 months ago changed Talleyville teenager Cindy Redmond's life.

The thunderous sound left the then-13-year-old with hyperacusis, a rare hearing condition that makes her so sensitive to sound that it actually hurts. The clanking of an ice machine, for example, can make her feel like her ears are burning or being repeatedly stabbed with a knife.

Cindy — who likes bubblegum pink, the Beanie Boos stuffed animals and her cats Zack and Cody — now spends most of her time with her mom, Laurie, in their home, cut off from the noisy outside world, her friends and school.

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An eighth-grader at Springer Middle School, Cindy dropped out because she literally couldn't listen to teachers lecturing without tremendous pain. She now is enrolled in an online school, which means a loss of friends and her social life.

Some friends have accused her of faking her condition.

Cindy can't go to the mall without bright-green sound-canceling headphones. And she no longer touches the cello she once played in her school orchestra.

Her pain level is never below a six, she says.

“Everything sounds the same. It just hurts," Cindy said. "The entire world, I never noticed how loud it is."

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Cindy's ordeal started in November 2016, when she was visiting a friend's house, talking on her cellphone at the kitchen table. Her friend's stepfather asked Cindy twice to hang up. When she did, he blasted an air horn — which can hit up to 129 decibels — in her ear. Most people talk at levels around 60 decibels.

Her ears continued to hurt the next day, but Laurie, a single mother, first thought it was from an ear infection. Then Cindy needed to leave school because the sound of a teacher's voice was too painful.

The pain continued to worsen, and they began regularly visiting the emergency room, sometimes more than once a week.

It would be six months before Cindy received an official diagnosis, one that has no cure and few treatment options.

Searching for a cure

Richard Salvi, director of the Center for Hearing and Deafness at the University of Buffalo, said the most common cause of hyperacusis is experiencing an extremely high decibel sound. Some people with autism have the problem without being blasted.

The intense sound can cause damage to sensory cells, which help the brain detect sound.

About 1 to 2 percent of Americans struggle with hyperacusis, says Bryan Pollard of Boston. He founded the nonprofit Hyperacusis Research in 2011 after he was diagnosed with the condition and realized how little is known about it or why some, but not all, sufferers experience pain.

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There has been some progress in the past five years, he said. About $10 million in grants from the National Institute of Health have been dedicated to issues related to hyperacusis. In the previous 10 years, it was only about $5 million.

Hyperacusis Research has made Cindy the face of the organization. It created the website cure4cindy.org, in which people can donate money to help fund research for the condition. She was featured on People.com, the magazine's website, in December.

A recent victory for the group was successfully getting diagnosis split into two classifications: hyperacusis and hyperacusis with pain.

Until recently, there had been no mention of physical pain associated with the condition, Pollard said. He said at least half of the people with hyperacusis do have some kind of pain, according to a survey of 200 people with it.

Salvi, who works with Pollard’s nonprofit, said University of Buffalo researchers theorize that the pain originates in the brain. They believe that when the sensory cells are damaged, the brain overcompensates by increasing the volume of the noises the ear hears, he said.

The researchers think the pain might come from that “reorganization of the brain.”

“We think somehow the sound pathway and the pain pathway communicate with one another,” he said.

His lab is studying the idea in rats.

Living in a new reality

In Cindy’s pink room, where Beanie Boos are perfectly aligned on shelves, get-well cards from former classmates hang on the walls.

“You’re doing great, so just keep on taking it step by step, one day at a time,” reads one card from her orchestra class.

Cindy says she has been enrolled in three schools in the past year, including her current online school.

She says she misses the social life of public school, and while she keeps in touch with some of her former classmates, she doesn’t see them as often as she once did.

When her best friends talk about homecoming dances, Cindy just listens now, Laurie says.

Cindy spends her time as a babysitter for one of her neighbors. Those kids are the few Cindy says she can be around because they’re not too loud.

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In the past year, Laurie and Cindy have tried different activities that aren’t too noisy, including rock climbing. They enjoy going to the mall, where Cindy wears her headphones.

“There’s plenty of things I know she would like to do,” Laurie says.

The two stayed home over the holidays because her dad's side of the family is very big — and loud.

The family chose not to take any legal action against the man who blasted Cindy with the air horn. It would have just hurt everyone, she says.

Laurie believes Cindy has gotten tougher in the past year. She can tolerate the pain much better, even though her condition hasn’t improved.

But mom worries about the future: college, future living situations and a career that's possible with hyperacusis.

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They’re doing their best to remain optimistic. Laurie recently started a new job that pays more, and in February, Cindy will receive regular treatments through Nemours/A.I. dupont Hospital for Children’s pain program.

The teenager will work with a pain psychologist as well as occupational and massage therapists with the hopes that reducing stress and tension will help minimize her pain.

But it likely won’t allow her to go to the noisy places she once loved to go to.

In the past year, Cindy has relied on art as both a creative and therapeutic outlet.

Of her many pieces of art, one is a self-portrait.

It shows her from the back, her long blonde hair flowing down her back like Rapunzel's. She’s wearing a pink rose flower crown.

Musical notes freely stream into her ears.

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @merenewman.