Gun Shooting Caused Tinnitus

Hi my name is Steve. I work for an armoured car company which I have to shoot twice a year for my requalifactions. I have never had a problem before until last shooting. I had all the protective gear on but after shooting it sounded like I had just gone to one loud concert. I had muffled my hearing and the ringing started.

To make matters worse I am already completely deaf in my right ear since a very early age.

The ear doctor says nothing can be done and my new family doctor says lipofavinoids are the cure.

Did anyone else get the ringing from shooting guns?

 

Me, after two years it has gone up and down in volume, but you get used to it I guess.
There's two medical interventions which could work in the early stages, namely a short taper of prednisone and HBOT treatment, none of which are guaranteed to work
Stay out of noise zones for a few months and wear earplugs in moderately loud environments, clean up your diet and do a lot of sports, it might go away on its own, but it's going to be a waiting game unfortunately

 

Thanks so much for your feedback. It does feel better knowing your not alone with this crazy ringing.

 

What protective gear did you use?

 

There are some people that have. I did not get T from shooting because I already had T when I began to shoot. I used two levels of protection, shooting muffs over ear plugs. I never had a spike after shooting.

However, I want to emphasize that my T was mostly moderate in those days with an occasional loud T day. I would not have gone shooting with it either loud or when it got severe.

Being that you're already completely deaf in your right ear, you might want to look at finding another job. If you can't do that now then at least wear two levels of protection when you shoot, as I did. All shooting muffs do not offer the same level of protection. Make sure you have or get a good quality pair. You can check out the shooting muffs at the Ear Plug Store:

https://www.earplugstore.com/shootandhun.html?_s_icmp=HOMEBAR5_HUNTING_HEAD

 

I have invested in a good ear plugs. Finding a new job eight now would suck. I have 21 years in. Thx for your reply.

 

@Steve was here - If you put "tinnitus from shooting guns" in the search box you will find many posts which may be of help to you.

 

Don't loose time and get the steroids direct injection into the inner ear - the best option for acute noise trauma

Only works very early on

For the shooting - get a silencer to your gun or a new gun that can have a silencer , it's also not hard to build your own silencer we used to do it back then with leather parts inside

What caused the issue in your deaf ear ? That may explain the weakness of the other ear perhaps , compared to your coworkers

 

Use double protection from now on. I would suggest to plug up (correctly) with Hearos xtreme protection plugs and on top of that the Peltor X5a muffs next time. ALSO, make sure your muffs are properly fitted in conjunction with the protective shooting glasses, as a bad fit can mess up the air seal and allow in harmful noise.
Also, before a next shooting session, load up on good quality magnesium, NAC and ACE vitamins, they all seem to have otoprotective qualities.
In fact, take a high dose of magnesium, NAC, vitamins and antioxidants for the next few weeks, they might help restore some of the auditory damage.

 

Shooting didn't trigger my T, but I'm sure it hasn't helped my hearing. Ear pro can vary wildly and it can fit people differently. I was in the 5th grade when I started shooting and didn't know how important good and even double ear pro is. After competing for a few years, I started looking for better ear pro and after having the second major increase (permanent) in T, finally found what works well.

I use howard leight max 33db ear plugs and pro ears pro mag gold 30db electronic muffs with the volume all the way up. With mild hearing loss, I can have conversations with people next to me, if the talk loud enough but more importantly the noise from gunfire is stopped. People who do 3gun run obnoxious brakes on their ar 15 rifles and just the concussion gets me........I don't shoot it anymore due to that and having to lug all the gear around.

I would guess a suppressor is not legal in Canada and it won't help if you have to defend yourself, unless you can always have it on your firearm, and it won't do anything for the bad guy or co worker with an unsurpressed gun. I'm working on getting my permit to carry and hope I never have to use it, but if the bad guy fires first I can try to save my life and will already have noise exposure anyway.

Ear infections triggered my T both times, at the age of 17 and 32. I'm sure I had damage from loud noise but it was my ear being full of wax and infection for a couple weeks that did it. At the last go around, my other ear got infected a month after the first, but I got it cleared up in a couple days at most and the T didn't increase noticeably in that ear.

 

Soldiers in the studies listed on
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-over-70-recover-3-studies.21441/
did, and many of them got better.