My first post; A question on handgun shooting/hearing loss.

+1 to what everyone has said already.

If you have any ringing after a loud sound then you probably incurred some damage.

Hearing damage is accumulative. Every little bit adds to permanent damage, it does not heal. Likewise, you can still prevent any further loss by protecting yourself from now on.

Always wear hearing protection when working with loud machinery, firearms, hammering, etc.

Get the highest rated (NR= noise reduction) protection you can find. NR28 - NR30 is pretty good. I would avoid anything less than NR23-225. You can also wear plugs at the same time as muffs for really loud noises.

Hearing protection can be various ear plugs from $1 - $10 available at sporting goods and home improvement stores. OR ear muffs for about $20-$30 (the best I've found are at Home Depot made by Peltor). Or electronic muffs that allow you to hear conversations but clamp out sharp noises for $35 - $200.

There is NO reason to not have hearing protection when you shoot or work around loud noises. I have muffs and spare plugs in my shooting bag, muffs and plugs hanging in my work shop, and plugs in my daypack.

I have tinnitus (ringing) mainly from working with chainsaws in my youth, but also some firearms before I wised up. Constant ringing, can't hear higher frequencies so well (music, conversation especially female voices), and the jabbering of crowds is very annoying. Worse part is I can't hear my grandkids speech too well.

A $1 foam plug today is better than a $100 electronic muff next year. But get the best kind of protection you can and WILL wear. Plugs are portable and cheap and very effective, and they do not interfere with buttstock, but they are inconvenient to take in and out if having conversation between shooting sessions.

Muffs are relatively cheap, effective, faster on and off than plugs ut can get in the way with some rifle stocks or wearing a hat, etc. Electronic muffs allow you to hear conversations while still protecting against loud bangs, so you don;t have to take them off and on, but are more expensive.
 
You are lucky you've not done permanent damage already as you have read. I too shot rifles, 22's and 30-30's without hearing protection. Then I got a .357 mag revolver. Tried that without as well. It hurt but I didn't think much of it. Later I got a 45 and 380 and of course I shot without protection. They all hurt and the ringing took longer to go away.

Then one morning I woke and could not hear out of one ear. I panicked and went to see an audiologist. End result was 80% lose of hearing in that one ear. No one shot did the damage. It was to accumulation. As others have said, don't do that anymore. You are lucky so far and I hope for your sake it stays that way.

I now carry a pair of custom made ear plugs with me all the time. I suggest you carry some kind as well.
 
Undamaged:


Some damage to the cilia:


Severe damage:


Each shot your ears experience without sufficient hearing protection does some damage. It depends on the amount of energy and the frequency (not how often but the pitch) of the energy that reaches the cilia and breaks them.

They do not repair.

Damage is permanent and therefore cumulative.

I started shooting when I was five. Now after almost 55 years of shooting I have significant permanent hearing loss.
 
Yeah, it's no joke. I probably wouldn't have stood so close to the speakers at concerts, and probably would have worn hearing protection when using the die-grinder at work back then if I could do it over.
 
6" barrell revolver shot out doors firing .38 special standard pressure LRN. Ringing started after 1st shot and got worse each shot of the cylinder. I then Stopped, searched for and found hearing protection to continue. Ringing did last for a few days but went away. Always wear hearing protection.
 
People where in the war's and didn't have hearing aid, alot of them have hearing problems. But they where exposed to 1,000's of rounds and artillery. Yes those few shots can mess your hearing up. I always cut my grass with hearing aid on. I wouldn't worry about it, these young kids are all at the loud concerts exposed for hours.
 
Besides the ear canal, you also need to protect the bones surrounding the ear, so muffs offer the best protection. Sound waves transmitted via vibration to the inner and middle ear will also cause severe hearing loss - I know
 
I see a trend here - you seem anxious to shoot but "darn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" as in forget safety and personal issues. Hearing protection is one of the aspects of safe shooting just as much as eye protection (you are wearing eye protection, right?) and the basic safety rules. Like others, I have some permanent hearing loss plus tinitis. Trust me, you want to protect your hearing.

Bottom line? Don't be so impulsive.
 
I'll echo what everyone else hear has surely said. ;) LOL, get it? Echo? Hear?

I will shoot .22s without hearing protection, but anything bigger and I always wear ear plugs and ear muffs overtop of them.

You will be OK but dont do it again.
 
Hearing protection is a must, especially short barrelled handguns. Those little compact guns are much louder than a full size. About the only time I don't wear hearing protection is when hunting or when shooting subsonic rounds out of a 22 rifle. When I shoot my 454, I usually wear plugs and muffs. One shot from that thing without hearing protection will leave your ears ringing like crazy.

We take a lot of things for granted in life and don't consider how important it is to protect them until they are gone. There are some things you don't get back once you lose them. Hearing, vision, fingers...
 
I have noticed a high pitch frequency ringing in my ears, but it's very faint. Could this be temporary, or permenant? Mostly when I lay my head down in bed. I know it is absolutely possible to have Tinnitus from exposed shooting, but would 13 rounds really be all it takes for it to remain permenant? I want to go nuts.
 
Only deaf people shoot without hearing protection and continuing to do so will put you in that category.
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Actually, they have eardrums, too.

I was a bit fortunate in this respect. When I was growing up, all the shooters I learned from had some degree of hearing loss. Most of that generation had a fairly cavalier attitude about hearing protection, as well as other aspects of safety. We used to call the gesture with the hand cupped over the ear the "NRA Salute."

I was involved with music, and no way was I going to end up functionally deaf at 30. I've always been pretty conscientious about hearing protection, and after almost three decades of shooting, I have roughly 5% hearing loss. At my age, that's below the statistical average, even for people who aren't exposed to loud noises on a regular basis.

I was told by the mumbly half-deaf folks that hearing loss simply came with shooting, and that it happened to everyone sooner or later. I consider myself proof that such is not the case.

(Other sage advice from those guys was that negligent discharges "just come with the territory," and that we're all bound to have them. Those folks were a walking cautionary tale.)
 
Always wear protection. It is strange how I can shoot hunting and not have the ringing, but I still try to where plugs or muffs. One shot from my 357 mag 3" left me questioning how much permanent damage I did. If the time came where I had to protect myself - so be it, otherwise not excuses. I bought some form fitting plugs that are great (sporting clays/trap) but now I see Surefire has plugs...look neat to me. I spent a week hunting wetland and upland in Canada with rubber ribbed plugs, really hurt after awhile, go foam or fitted. Hunting, rifle, I put my muffs on my thigh and when things get deery, on my head but not on ears until I see a shooter.

Cheers,
tjg
 
Welcome to TFL. I do the double-up thing when it comes to protecting my hearing; I use both plugs and muffs. When cutting the grass [no, not "mowing the lawn", only Yankees do that;)], I use just the plugs. I also try to keep the volume reasonably low whenever I'm jammin' to George Thorogood in the car.:cool:
 
I am also 64 years of age, and I have a severe hearing loss. I have been wearing hearing aids for almost ten years now. Do they help? Yes Do they provide me with good hearing? No I will never hear well, and I am a burden to everyone around me attempting to communicate with me.

I was in the Combat Engineers and in a Jungle Clearing Company in Nam. We had thirty D-7 doziers with rome plows and some with bull blades. We stayed in the boonies and only had a one week stand-down (in the rear) during my tour of duty. We did not have hearing proteciton of any sort. Every plow at some time or another during a month period would hit a mine or we called them booby traps. Now, they are refered to as Improvised Explosive Devices (IED's). We hit everything from grenades to 155 rounds. There was lots of gun fire. There was Harrassment and Interdiction fire every thirty to forty minutes all night long around our perimeter. Our perimeter was a large circular berm which was great protection but it further amplified the H&I fire. Everyone of us suffered our bouts of ringing ears.

Did we know there was a problem? No, not until many years later. Will the Veterans Administration help any of us? No, you had to of filed your claim within one year of separation from service.

Now, I always wear hearing protection when I shoot. I am trying to preserve what very little hearing I have left.

You will most likely never know if you have damaged your hearing until many years after the damage is done.
 
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old shooters

We were sitting around at a post match barbeque and bamawife was along. Lots of great shots and senior shooters there and conversation flowed, albeit haltingly, broken by "huh, what, say again, etc".

Bamawife says later........."Nobody can hear"

Response: "What?"
 
Thanks for asking our advice and welcome to the forum

PADave90 said:
(edited for brevity)I noticed a very slight pressure/fullness in my ears that I began panicking over, and I still have it as of now. ...The question I have for each of you is, do you think, say.. 12/13 shots with no hearing protection could have ruined my ears forever?
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No need to panic. Panic does not good after the fact.

Still have it? Talk to your doctor about it your next visit. Google the symptoms.

Ruined? no. Adversely affected? Definitely.

I fired 6 shots in 1975 that my ears still rang over two weeks later and I have a couple of holes in my hearing (frequency range dip) to this day that dates back to about that time period.

When I joined the Air Force in 1973, my hearing was excellent across the entire frequency spectrum. Eleven years later, my hearing was excellent across most of the frequency spectrum except for some discrete dips (what I call the holes). One of the dips corresponded to a frequency of some machinery I attended. One of the others corresponded to the tone frequency of the ringing that developed after that one shooting session.

but these moments were spur of the moment so I had been empty handed.
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Don't go empty handed, ever. If nothing else, stick a couple of bullets in your ears (very poor protection, but almost as good as fingers, if the bullets fit well) or chew up some paper to make a spitwad that will plug your ear canal.

I suggest you (given how I guess your shooting habits are) get a dozen sets of the disposable foam earplugs and keep a pair of them with every gun you have. Put a pair in the bottom of your holster, or in your gun case. An extra couple of pairs in your ammo box (if you have one).

Get a good pair of reusable plugs and keep them in one of those small waterproof containers on your keyring.

I wear two sets of hearing protectors (custom molded ear plugs and 30 db muffs) when shooting the big calibers.

Sorry to bear bad news, but the earlier you take protective measures and more assiduously apply them, the better. But you know that already. I only wonder that it took two shooting sessions.

What do you use for eye protection?

Good luck, good shooting. Be safe, always, all ways.

Lost Sheep
 
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Absolutely, yes

PADave90 said:
I have noticed a high pitch frequency ringing in my ears, but it's very faint. Could this be temporary, or permenant? Mostly when I lay my head down in bed. I know it is absolutely possible to have Tinnitus from exposed shooting, but would 13 rounds really be all it takes for it to remain permenant? I want to go nuts.
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Ask any Ear-nose-throat Doctor, or, better yet, Audiologist.

In my experience, it will subside over a few months to a year, but will probably never go away completely.

ABSOLUTELY, YES!

Sorry about the shouting. It's often necessary with long-time shooters:eek: and slow learners;):rolleyes:.

Lost Sheep
 
The best advice has already been offered....never shoot without eye and ear protection.

I am a Vietnam Veteran and spent a year in countless firefights without the benefit of hearing protection. Not even sure if I would have worn protection if I could, back then. Ah yes, the immortality of youth. Not only the small arms but the artillery, rockets, mortars, and riding in Hueys and Chinooks all played a part in my hearing loss.

I will never regain what I have lost nor will the tinnitus ever go away. I am fortunate that the VA has issued me hearing aids that allow me to hear in noisy environments and even help with the tinnitus. Do not close the barn door after the horse has left the barn. Protect and preserve what you have. You will thank yourself later in life.
 
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