Hi Guys

[A13HJ]

Hi Guys..

I've been having tinnitus since 1999 when I was 14 years old, (skeetshooting without hearing protection)

Back then I was terrified, could not sleep at night, and feeling anxiety-attacks. Over the years I learned to ingnore the sound, and stop paying attention to it.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the shooting range, and used hearing protection but somehow my tinnitus is worse than ever, I can even hear it when I'm outdoor which never have been a problem before. Now I'm back at the anxiety and sleeping issues. I've beat this before and will do it again. I think it will slip back in the background when I learn to ignore it again. I think the problem is that I'm actively lisening for it at the moment.

best regards

 

[billie48]

Your brain is listening because it thinks the new level of ringing is a threat. Given time if you don't over-react to this ringing and live life normally as best as you can, the brain will get it that the new normal is ok and livable. With that the 'threat' label is removed from T and the brain will soon habituate to it or will fade it out of consciousness when you get busy. You have done it before and be positive that you can do that again. Take good care & God bless.

If you need to mask the T so your brain won't always zoom in to T, here are some masking sounds. Try to set the volume slightly less than T so the brain will still learn to get used to the T ringing over time.

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or download free sound generator 'aire freshener': http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html

or make your own rain sound: http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php

or search youtube with words like 'tinnitus masking sounds', 'white noise', 'rain sound' etc.

 

[Bobby B]

Hearing protection does not work well for very loud burst sounds and explosions especially if you have already damaged ears
It only reduces sound by 30db and firearms can do 150db
And it happens so fast you ears cannot switch on the mechanism to protect themselves

I would avoid shooting ranges even with protection .

Maybe get some steroids to ease the nerve damage