Ear ringing

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As many people on here already stated - welcome to the club. Im 20 years old and I ask "what" more than 20 times a day. I wear hearing protection as much as possible but between a jackhammer at work, 4 subwoofers in my trunk, and going to the range hearing loss is just inevitable.

As for the ringing - its more of a "all in the mind" type deal. Dont think about it and it wont be as bad ;)
 
Shooting has taught me to protect my hearing and eyes as much as possible. I use ear plugs and safety glasses when using power tools at home (band saw, circular saw, etc.). I even use an ear plug when I drive on an expressway with the window down. You can still hear most everything, but without the hearing damage or discomfort.

I hope your hearing gets better.
 
but between a jackhammer at work, 4 subwoofers in my trunk, and going to the range hearing loss is just inevitable.
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Not necessarily. You should be wearing plugs when on a jackhammer, plugs and muffs at the range, and for pete's sake, get rid of those ridiculous speakers.

I marvel at kids who have their radios so loud that the windows are literally flexing. Do they not realize they'll be deaf from that?
 
I had forgotten the reference to cicadas or locusts but that's pretty much what I hear all the time. On the other hand, I'm surrounded by things that hum all the time, too. I am rarely anywhere that is otherwise dead silent anyway. Outside, except in the very dead of winter, the wind blows, the birds call out and there is a background noise of trains, airplanes and road noise. Also, lately, here in Northern Virginia, I am sometimes awakened by a loud jet airplane flying around at 1:00 o'clock in the morning, which is particularly disturbing.

I also confess to playing music on my car radio that will cause the rear view mirrors to vibrate. I have to import it direct from Austria.
 
A little tip...

You can further protect your hearing by wearing both plugs AND muffs. I was a Licensed Hearing Conservationist in an industrial high-noise environment (similar to gunfire) for many years- trust me, the results are worth the trouble. Wearing headphones or plugs reduces the impulse noise by the Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) of the product- so, if you're wearing muffs with an NRR of 30, you're probably reducing gunfore to 120 or 125....not NEAR enough to prevent damage. You should wear BOTH.
For the vets who have given their hearing in our country's service, there's not much help. Hard to wear this equipment in a combat zone. Your sacrifice on our behalf is appreciated, and we thank you.
Tinnitus- the constant ringing- is tough to live with. I once forgot to put on my hearing protection in the rapid fire stage of a .45 Bullseye match indoors...and was too stupid to put the gun down and cover my ears. Ringing ever since.
 
I'll never advise someone to not use hearing protection, but it does not always effect everyone the same. I have been shooting since I was a pre-teen, worked in a few loud environments when in HS and college and never used any hearing protection until I was in my mid-30's. I have experienced ringing in my ears from extended shooting or from a few rounds through magnum revolvers in the past, but it was always temporary. As part of my job I have had to pass a hearing test each year since 1980 when I graduated college.

By my mid 30's I was told that I had a very mild, roughly 5% loss of hearing in my left ear, but my right ear was perfect. That is when I started wearing hearing protection when shooting. I could always hear just fine because the tones that I could not hear in my left ear were not normal everyday sounds. By age 53 nothing had changed.

On July 9th of last summer I went to bed hearing just fine and woke up the next morning stone deaf in my right ear. Normlly this is a sign of a brain tumor, but the MRI was clear. The doctors best guess is that a tiny blood vein in my inner ear either burst, or became clogged cutting off blood supply to my auditory nerve. I took 2 rounds of steriods to try to regenerate growth inside my ear. It helped a little, I'm currently about 95% in my left ear and 10-15% in my right.

At first, when I had zero hearing in my right ear the biggest problem was locating objects by sound. My cell phone could ring and I could hear it just fine, but could not even figure out which room it was in. I've got just enough hearing in that ear now to make that task a little easier. In fairly quiet environments I can actually hear just fine. TV is no problem. The biggest problem now is picking out what one person is trying to say to me when in a loud room. I have to have my good ear pointed toward them and be pretty close.

When I hear loud noises in my right ear it sounds like a cheap speaker with the volume turned up too loud, very distorted and actually painful if loud enough. I've started wearing an earplug in the bad ear when in church or at ball games because I get clear hearing in the left ear and distorted sounds in the right. It actually sounds clearer with the bad ear plugged. When at home or in a quiet setting it does not cause a problem. With the bad ear plugged I lose my ability to locate stuff by sound so it is a temporary trade off.

The ringing started in my right ear only after the partial hearing started coming back from the steroids. It is there all the time now, but I never notice it unless I think about it.
 
still ringing, ive been putting drops in it and taking vitamins but i guess im just gonna have to learn to deal with it. thanks for the help though.
 
You may want to try a thorough ear flushing as well. Mixing Hydrogen Peroxide and water, use a rubber ball type syringe(like a small turkey baster) to flush the ear.

Heat the mixture to a luke warm (DO NOT BURN EAR CANAL), tilt your head and using the syringe, put some of the mixture in ear. Let the peroxide/water work for a minute or so then syringe out. Repeat,repeat and repeat again.

Talk to your local pharmacist for assistance.

Goodluck!
 
ive been putting drops in it and taking vitamins
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You may want to try a thorough ear flushing as well.
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You people don't understand the nature of traumatic hearing damage. It has nothing to do with ear wax or nutrition. Neither flushing nor vitamins are going to repair the damage.

The way you actually hear something is that ganglia (small hairs in your inner ear) vibrate from the result of moving air hitting them, transmitting a message to your brain. When the ganglion are assaulted by an extremely loud stimulus (e.g. crash, jet engine, gun shot), they get "pushed down" a little. They never "stand back up" to their full extension. People lose their hearing as they get older as a result of continued assaults upon the ganglion, pushing them down more and more each time. This results in hearing loss, the ganglion are no longer able to effectively transmit a given message. The loss of frequency (pitch) recognition can be segments of the full spectrum, all hertz between low and high.
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The OP's ganglion have been permanently pushed down, never to fully stand up again. The best he can do it protect what remains of his hearing as if it were sacred.
 
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Yeah, sorry mate. You're stuck.
I never took ear protection hunting b/c it was "only 1 or 2 shots". It was 2 shots of a 30-06 this year and my ears have had ringing ever since.

My goal now is to keep what I got till I have grandkids. Then, depending on what they are saying to me, I might take the earplugs out again... lol
 
You people don't understand the nature of traumatic hearing damage. It has nothing to do with ear wax or nutrition. Neither flushing nor vitamins are going to repair the damage.
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No, you don't seem to understand. Nobody is suggesting that flushing is going to repair his hearing. It's just that if you want to know best if you are regaining your hearing and/or losing tinnitus, you should start with clean ears.

Excess ear wax can easily fool you into believing you are in worse shape than you really are.
 
for pete's sake, get rid of those ridiculous speakers.

I marvel at kids who have their radios so loud that the windows are literally flexing. Do they not realize they'll be deaf from that?
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Its another hobby of mine, I dont really turn them up unless I'm doing a demo or at a show/competition.
 
Nobody is suggesting that flushing is going to repair his hearing.
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Now you're being obtuse. The OP is complaining about hearing damage from firing a handgun with no hearing protection. And you suggest flushing his ears. Now you're trying to suggest you're not suggesting a connection?

:rolleyes:

Quit posting. You sound silly.
 
Aspirin + Vitamin E

http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/hearing/pages/noise.aspx

I thought I read this here on TFL but someone must have posted it on another forum.

Basically, according to the NIH web site (and other abstracts you might have the patience to read... I don't) there's been some investigations into antioxidants in Aspirin and Vitamin E up to 3 days after loud noise exposure.

Seems like it used to be thought that if you load up with vitamin E before exposure it might help but after-the-fact may be useful too, to reduce the level of hearing damage. Remember this is a big maybe

I don't know what this would mean in practical terms as far as tinnitus and actual numbers. Also I think this was in guinea pigs. But people eat/drink stranger things than Aspirin and Vitamin E. Watch out for that Aspirin though if you're taking other blood thinners or have stomach ulcers, and unlike Vitamin C - Vitamin E can accumulate to toxic levels being fat soluble so I wouldn't go make a vitamin pill burger patty out of that either. Good luck.

The theory (i think) is that the damaged cells will release free radicals (highly charged compounds) that will want to react/damage things they come into contact with. Antioxidants can "take the hit" (was it accepting or donating the electron?) rather than surrounding tissues. Free radicals and antioxidants are real and our body does have some systems built in to use them but the iffy zones usually come about when marketing becomes involved like: how much antioxidant does that particular product really have? (care to prove it?) Is it even being delivered to where it matters? Is it proven to reduce the risk of ? (usually cancer is the concern) - by what percentage? And we end up spending lots of money on powdered berries :D

-disclaimer time: I am not telling anyone to take/not take Aspirin or Vitamin E and if you do so it is at your own risk and I will not be held responsible. Any decision you make is your own should you read the website.
 
Time to make an appointment with

I'd suggest you make an appointment with an ENT in your area. If you happen to be in Central Florida I can recommend a good one. I've experienced tinnitus off and on for the past 10 years. The past year has been very consistent and as I write this I've got both ears with lots of static.

There are tests that the ENT can do to determine if the nerve has been damaged. I don't believe that any over the counter drops will assist you. Btw, there is some evidence that smoking exascerbates the problem.

Whenever I go to the range I wear PLUGS and MUFFS. I'm worried that if I'm ever in a self defense senario I'm not going to recover from my own gun blast since I won't be familar with it.

I am also thoroughly annoyed that we can't buy "suppressors". There is very little reason to make these difficult to buy and exposes us to dangerous noise levels.
 
Now you're being obtuse. The OP is complaining about hearing damage from firing a handgun with no hearing protection. And you suggest flushing his ears. Now you're trying to suggest you're not suggesting a connection?

Quit posting. You sound silly.
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Alright you want it you got it. A friend of mine went to bed a few years ago and woke up completely deaf in his right ear. As he was already hard of hearing, this scared the crap out of him and off he went to the doctor. Said doctor pulled a chunk of wax out of the ear canal and said nothing else was wrong. Had he ever flushed out his ears? No. But he started it once a year from then on. Get it? If something like this happened to the OP now, he would certainly think it was from what he did, get it? Your arrogance and rush to impress us with your scientific lingo is clouding your common sense. Now read who posted what and comprehend, please. And you quit posting. Or continue with PM.
 
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