Acoustic Trauma After 20 Gauge Shotgun Went Off Inside an Enclosed Hunting Blind

Incident last week while deer hunting. 20 gauge shotgun was shot inside an enclosed soft sided hunting blind. Muzzle of the barrel was inside the blind. I had immediate loss of hearing in both ears. Right came back within the hour pretty much completely but the left is still ringing.

Long history of tinnitus due to farming, military, and shooting sports. This episode is bad. My doctor put me on high prednisone blast for two weeks. I’m taking Melatonin as well and have taken it for years due to working night shifts for years.

I’ve got appointments with ENT and audiology after the course of Prednisone. Anything else I could be doing in the interim?

 

Maybe Lasix? Low dose and low salt for a while?

 

Based on my own recent experience, I would take a high dose N-Acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) (1500 mg or so) as soon as possible, along with Chelated Magnesium and Zinc.
There has been a lot of research (google for nac accoustic trauma) where NAC can help after acoustic trauma as long as it is taken as soon as possible.

NAC is pretty hard to get nowadays due to FDA ban. I got mine online thru iHerb, and I paid extra in shipping, to get that overnighted.

 

Lasix on my ears?

Low dose what?

And what does low sodium accomplish?

Thanks.

 

He meant low-dose Lasix.

Lasix is Furosemide, it's a loop diuretic medication.

You confused it with the eye procedure LASIK...

 

FYI - NAC isn't hard to get if you're in the US. It's just not available on Amazon. I bought some yesterday from a reputable nutrition website. It's still available at Walmart.

 

A store called the VitaminShoppe said they’re going to carry NAC regardless of the FDA decision and I just checked, they have some in stock as of today near my location (I’m US based). @Dennis Cleghorn, you might want to check this first and get some readily available.

 

It is shown in mice to reduce hydrops due to blast trauma.

Blast trauma, like a gun, in theory causes temporary hydrops, and therefore synapse damage from the edema.

Lots of swelling occurs in the nerves.

I guess Dexamethasone (or Gabapentin, it slows the nerves firing to death, stop calcium entering neurons and swelling them with water), but only the day of trauma really.

Lasix might help the day of to a couple days out.

Any hydrops you had are likely gone now.