Janet Horvath, formerly associate principal cello of the Minnesota Orchestra: “After a second months-long round of doctor-hopping, I finally met an ENT who seemed to understand my condition. I had developed a noise-induced ailment called hyperacusis, he told me, an auditory injury caused by repeated exposure to high decibels or a single acoustic shock. It was characterized by abnormal sensitivity – in other words, the total breakdown of tolerance to all sound.”