Hypersensitivity Poll (Parents please participate)

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When I was a child I had severe hypersensitivity to clothing and smells which started around 4 or 5 and peaked when I was about 6 or 7 and then slowly declined.

I could only wear cotton stretch pants, shirts without tags, and thin satin socks that I'd routinely cut the "balled" fabric at the end of the seems off. It'd take me forever to get my shoes on because if I felt any clumping or the socks riding up between my toes IT'D DRIVE ME CRAZY and I'd have to fix it.

I couldn't wear anything with any type of lace or course fabric either, and I couldn't be in the kitchen when my mom fed the cat because I couldn't stand the smell of the catfood.

As an adult, I can tolerate these things much better. I can wear most fabrics and socks (though I still cut the seams sometimes), the smell of catfood doesn't bother me, and I consider most jeans to be comfortable.

I've noticed many parents who say their children have had massive issues with hypersensitivity in their life, and it seems to center around the ages of 6-7 as well to the extent that I believe a very real neurological basis is behind this, that is consistent in those who have this experience.

I was actually hyposensitive to touch and pain. Now I'm mildly hypersensitive. Well it depends on the situation and the coarseness of the item.
Pain used to not be a problem for me, now it is. I'd fall from trees and cut myself up badly and I'd just laugh. Now I would moan and swear in pain.
I used to wear winter clothes in summer, now I'm very sensitive to temperature changes. As I write this I'm boiling and can feel my dry skin without even touching it.
I may have been about 16 when the change happened. My balance also got worse.
I've always had a hypersensitivity to smells though. I would choke on incense. It's still the same. I have to hold my breath when I spray deodorant or hair spray.
I think I was hypersensitive to sounds. Oh yeah, I hated thunder.

I was all over the place.

I was very hypersensitive auditorily as a child which has lessened but still exists now but my sensitivity to touch has just kept increasing my entire life & is a constant problem. My other senses are still a bit too sensitive as well.

As a child, yes, to noise and light touch. However, one of my mom's less-insane treatments actually worked and fixed my hearing for a while. Now, in my late teens, it's coming back. But it may not be back for good; it doesn't seem as bad now as it was a couple weeks ago.

I think as a child I was more bothered by things like tags and seams than I am now, but I still can't wear most types of fabric or jewelry due to touch sensitivity. I think my auditory sensitivity has actually gotten worse. Yeah, really, none of my sensitivities have gotten better in any significant way.

Mine have stayed about the same. I wasn't aware until recently that I had any hypersensitivity, I just thought everyone did and I was just a baby about it.

I find blood tests or any occasion when a sharp object pierces the skin to be extremely painful, but I had to have it pointed out to me by the psychologist who diagnosed me with AS. I used to think "fear of needles" was just a euphemism for "hurts like hell." I only sometimes have to cut the tags off my clothes, but I can't stand wearing a bra, and even though I only wear soft ones with no underwire I have to take them off the minute I get home.

I have some hypersensitivity to sounds like loud music. I have to leave the room, especially if the sound is distorted. I also can't stand the sound of static.

But as I said, nothing has changed since childhood as far as I am aware.

None of the poll options fit me. I'm mixed hypo/hyper but mostly hypersensitive. I was more hypo as a child but my sensory issues skyrocketed around puberty-age and haven't become any better since. Some of my issues are constant, some I have overcome but I have new ones or ones that just intensified.

Yes, moderately as a child, but it's actually been more severe in recent years during adulthood.

I was hypersensitive to several things as a kid and still am now at the age of 24

Taste
sight
Hearing
Smell

Not so much touch because I went through Physical Therapy to lessen the sensitivity when I was a kid. Other then that all my other senses are high Taste I can taste stuff in food that many other people can't taste also when I go to my buddy's partys that deal with booze I can use my taste to prevent them from like spiking my soda or making something stronger then it should be. Sight I still get bothered by sortant things like with CRTs I can them redraw. Hearing I can hear those pest repealer things that some people use in there garden or McDonalds use in the outdoor playground or a sound frequancy that most people don't mind like squeaky brakes on Cars and Buses. Smell I can pick up the smell of something even small like if a forest fire starts and not much smoke is around I can get a very Small hint and smell it like it is in front of me. Some of those are examples most of the senses are overdrived if I wake up in the middle of the night out of a dead sleep like a Small LED would light out the whole room like if I turned on a regular light.

My night vision is ramped up also I like seeing in nearly pitch black room.

My autist daughter has auditory sensitivity. She is bothered by noises that my brain filters out. She will often say, "what's that noise" and it takes quite a while of my intense and focused listening before I realize what she's talking about. If it bothers her she puts her fingers in her ears. There was that time the smoke alarm went off when I burned something and that was a very unpleasant experience. She intensly dislikes fire drills at school but survives them by following the drill with her fingers in her ears.

I am and have been very sensitive to loud sharp noises or voices. I never noticed that till I was 7 and had my hearing "fixed". After that point going out to eat at a noisy restaurant was a problem for me. Sometimes it would be so bad I would go wait outside or in the car. I have had meltdowns, I recently had one (I'm 42) at a very noisy restaurant, partly the noise and partly the hostess would not move us, away from the bar and loud football game on TV with loud subwoofer. I have a fight or flight response. I get panicky, my heart races, and I feel like the voices noises are physically attacking me. Like I am being assaulted somehow. Sometimes it would be so bad I would go wait outside. I can handle most loud music, but not a loud movie or TV. I have always had a very high pain tolerance, something even my parents noticed when I was young. I am and have been hypersensitive to light touch, and certain fabrics. Another thing is if someone touches me with a cold hand, or a cold object touches me, I will feel it like it's burning for a very long time afterwards. I also am very affected by low frequency sounds, and I can't filter out background noises either. I think most of this has been the same since I was a child, what has changed is how I deal with it. Sometimes I can, but it's really tough if I have to do it a long time or often, or I am tired or stressed. at a restaurant I will go to the men's room, just to get a break. I make sure to never sit at the windows, (too sound reflective) or near the bar (noisy drunk guys hitting on loud laughing drunk girls + blenders) I am a member of a group with one of my interest, they meet in a basement banquet room, all hard surfaces, I'm fine during the meeting, but when the business part is done, and people socialize, I make excuses and leave. I tried to stay and be social, but I can't handle that many people talking at once and loudly in that space.

I'm finding it hard to answer the poll because my child is still a child, so I don't know what "adult" will look like for him yet.

He does seem to be outgrowing many of his hypersensitivities, however. They started developing sometime in his toddler years, and they started to phase out sometime in his later elementary school years. You may be right that around 5 - 7 was the peak; I don't remember precisely.

I would refuse certain close for a different reason: the countries that they came from. If it was from Thailand, Pakistan, or any other non-developed, industrialized country, I wouldn't wear it. Other than that, I was hyposensitive to certain things, and hypersensitive to others, such as milk, which I claim that I can "smell".