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Meet the Funder Problem-Solving a Problem With Volume. Bryan Pollard
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Bryan Pollard (above right) with University at Buffalo professor Richard Salvi, Ph.D., a six-time Emerging Research Grants recipient who is a mentor and scientific adviser to Hyperacusis Research Ltd.
Problem-Solving a Problem With Volume
By Bryan Pollard
My own background with experiencing hyperacusis started a little over a decade ago, ironically from a situation where I was trying to make things safer at my home. I had a tree growing partially over the house, and I was concerned that it might come down on the house during a storm. It was quite large, and on the day it was to be cut down I was at home from work to help make sure it wouldn’t hit the house.
After the tree trimmers used chainsaws to cut it down, I was quite relieved that it was down safely. I thought the most dangerous part of the work was done. I assumed they would start cutting up the large chunks of the tree to put on a truck, but they instead used this huge, industrial-sized wood chipper to begin chipping up the entire tree, including the large chunks.
I remember thinking, “I don’t think I’ve heard anything that loud in my life!” I stood watching it for a few minutes and walked right by the wood chipper to go have my lunch. Little did I know there was significant damage that had already occurred. After a few days I began experiencing various symptoms, including ear pain, which I learned later is a typical trajectory for hyperacusis patients.
Using the usual auditory exams, the ENT could find no detectable damage, and I began visiting other audiologists to find help. None of them even mentioned hyperacusis. I discovered the condition myself after searching online using my symptoms. “Hyperacusis”—or hypersensitivity to sounds— captured what I was experiencing. Eventually I found someone 45 miles away who offered the standard Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT) for hyperacusis. I kept with it for over five years, with some modest improvement.
My hyperacusis symptoms were fairly typical. When I was exposed to what used to be previously tolerable sounds, my ear would start throbbing but, confusingly, it wouldn’t always happen right away. In fact, sometimes I would think, “Oh, that situation didn’t really bother me,” but after lying down at night my ear would start throbbing.
I bought a decibel meter (smartphone apps weren’t available as much at the time) to start noting the decibel levels of my environment to see if they correlated with my symptoms, which included not only throbbing but also ear fullness and tinnitus. I saw that my symptoms would spike in relationship to my surrounding noise levels.
My career as an engineer at a high-tech–oriented company was one of solving technical problems. I had studied a number of innovative problemsolving methodologies, including a pattern database. As I started approaching my hyperacusis as I would at work, what became evident to me was that there was no systematic assessment in the research community of the nature of what patients were experiencing. Basic publications about hyperacusis were pretty thin, especially from an in-depth technical perspective, so I started emailing researchers directly.
Rather than describing myself as a patient, I reached out saying that I had been trying to understand a particular aspect of their research. I was able to connect with David Mountain, Ph.D., at Boston University, a renowned
researcher who has since passed away. Since he had an electrical engineering background, as I do, and lived close by, I was fortunate to meet him in person.
Although he had never studied hyperacusis directly or even heard about it, he had in-depth knowledge of basic auditory functions. Fascinated by this condition and what I described to him, he became a strong partner and advocate and gave me the basis to begin problem-solving. It became clear that if we wanted to significantly influence the research, we needed to create a more formal method to create a coalition of forces that could start to affect what was being researched.
A nonprofit became the obvious choice, so we founded Hyperacusis Research Ltd. There was no debate on the name. We knew that unlike other organizations that cover every single dimension of a health condition—the patient side as well as the clinical and research side, a broad basis—we’d have just a small band of volunteers. In those early days we intentionally focused solely on the research dimension in order to make a direct impact.
My career as an engineer at a high-tech–oriented company was one of solving technical problems. I had studied a number of innovative problemsolving methodologies, including a pattern database. As I started approaching my hyperacusis as I would at work, what became evident to me was that there was no systematic assessment in the research community of the nature of what patients were experiencing.
What really became our platform for greater influence was our partnership with Hearing Health Foundation (HHF). We were connected through a New York City physician who had hyperacusis. We learned that HHF is the largest nonprofit U.S. funder of hearing and balance disorders, and our collaboration has enabled the research dollars we obtain to reach a much larger audience through its Emerging Research Grants (ERG) program, through which scientists can gather preliminary data to support an application for a larger grant.
In fact one of the leading scientists we have worked with is 2012 ERG recipient Richard Tyler, Ph.D., whose comprehensive 2014 literature review of hyperacusis studies provided the basis for identifying hyperacusis subtypes and noting that they are often variable and co-occurring.
The partnership with HHF has given us name recognition in the scientific community while ensuring that we are funding the most promising hyperacusis research. Having collaborated with HHF since 2011, we have also followed the progress of HHF’s Hearing Restoration Project and the many different dimensions that sensory hair cell regeneration covers, from a better understanding of notch-signaling pathways to genetic reprogramming techniques. All are part of what it’s going to take to develop successful hearing restoration.
We are excited to learn more about relationships between loudness and pain. In fact I coined the term “noise-induced pain” from the term “noise-induced hearing loss” to help the entire auditory research field understand this is what we’re attempting to uncover. Understanding the pain mechanism, whether it’s certain nerve fibers and/or an inflammatory response, or something else, will help us devise better treatments and find relief.
Bryan Pollard is the founder of Hyperacusis Research Ltd., at hyperacusisresearch.org. Hearing Health Foundation is very grateful for Hyperacusis Research’s longtime support since 2011 of our Emerging Research Grants program, funding seven researchers investigating the mechanisms, causes, diagnosis, and treatments of hyperacusis and other forms of loudness intolerance. For more, see hhf.org/erg. This is adapted from the “Tinnitus Talk Podcast,” produced by the U.K.-based patient organization Tinnitus Hub. For more, see tinnitushub.com and tinnitustalk.com.
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