Hello, I've previously posted here regarding my issues and received incredibly helpful advice in explaining why I'm experiencing the problems I am - in particular the hyperacusis, something I didn't have a word for before!

Without going into my history all over again, in brief, I suffered a brain stem injury in mid 2018 following a severe illness and was in a medically induced coma for ~2 weeks due to developing uncontrolled seizures, complicated by pulmonary oedema/effusion, and sepsis from my PICC line. I received intensive speech and physio therapy from the rehabilitation team both during my months in hospital and for about 8 months after I was discharged.

Whilst I regained some physical function (I still need a wheelchair outside of the home, and use a stick for very short distances) my speech, although much improved, has been very inconsistent. I have always been very soft spoken, but the effort it takes now to speak at all is like nothing I'd ever imagined - I basically took the ability to speak for granted previously. I would now compare the prospect of having a conversation, like having to make a phone call, as the way others might view having to complete a challenging training session at the gym, or being forced to converse in an unfamiliar language with a native speaker.

This is my primary difficulty, it's hard to explain concisely, but I'd estimate that about 10% of the time I can't speak at all, 30% my speech is slow, stuttering and slurred/elided to the point where even close family have great difficulty understanding me, then the rest of the time it's a combination of these issues; the quietness of my speech is the one constant, the eliding/stuttering is less common but is more pronounced when I'm stressed.

My other problem is the hyperacusis (thank you again to the person who gave a name to what I'd been experiencing!). Since I learned of the term, I've been trying to slowly expose myself to more noises in a controlled manner, such as having low music on in the background whilst reading, gradually increasing the volume if I watch something (I'd almost entirely stopped watching tv/films for nearly a year until recently, and then with just subtitles on!) and feel that I am making progress. Honestly though, I have a LOT of anxiety about noise that I can't control, which both makes me want to 'cure' myself as quickly as possible, or give up and invest in a lifetime supply of earplugs!!

Unfortunately, last weekend one of my worst nightmares happened (I know, how pathetic and spoiled am I that this is considered a great fear), the fire alarms went off in my building - they are the incredibly loud, hardwired ones, which can only be switched off by either the fire brigade or by entering a sequence of codes into a control panel. Although my neighbours immediately went to try and switch it off (I'm too short to reach the panel, even if I did have the key) it was about 40 minutes before it could be switched off. This was a really upsetting experience for me, and really knocked my confidence, although rationally I understand that I've only been working on building my tolerance for a few weeks, I felt like I handled the situation very poorly and it made me angry at myself for STILL having such extreme reactions to noise. Now it's been a few days, I'm feeling more determined again to get back on to my 'noise training'. I live just metres away from a huge block of student accommodation, and every weekend is noisy, but I know it's going to get worse in the run up to the Christmas/New Year as it does every year, so would really like to be more prepared before I'm a quivering wreck for weeks!

My insurer - I'm in the UK and an NHS patient, but work for a private medical insurer and have cover under my employee scheme - has advised me that they would cover me for diagnostic tests such as hearing tests, laryngoscopy, scans (although I have an annual brain MRI due to my relatively recent epilepsy diagnosis, and the last one in February was normal) and depending on what is recommended by a specialist, I can have treatment with a speech/language therapist either as an out patient, or as an in or day patient if more intensive rehabilitation is required. However, given the situation with Covid-19, and me being in the 'highly vulnerable' category, this isn't going to be possible for the foreseeable future.

I am worried that if I leave the situation as it is my problems are going to get worse, I noticed a definite downturn since I went into isolation at the beginning of the year when I was no longer communicating verbally with others on a daily basis. In my previous post, someone mentioned that there are apps that could be helpful for me, I've tried having a look but I honestly don't know where to start, or what kind of thing I could expect to get help with?

Apologies for the mammoth post - I might live in near silence in real life, but I definitely 'talk' too much when I don't have to speak out loud! Thank you if you've managed to bear with me so far, and for your kind advice here and on my previous post 🙂