I Got Hit with a Puck to the Side of My Helmet — Caused Me More Tinnitus

Well.... bummer.

I first got mild Tinnitus years ago, but it was the sort of tinnitus that you would barely hear in a quiet room. Very easy to live with. Unknown how ( I think noise ).

Then came 2016, when I received oxotoxic antibiotics. I'm sure you know how that goes ......

Anyways, a week ago playing Hockey. PAK! ..... I get hit with a puck to the side of my helmet (goalie) right against my hear. Instantly go deaf in my right ear for a few moments before things come back 1 mins later. I knew it was bad. That night I could hear a very low ... reactive higher pitch noise (that or I'm getting weird input at a certain tone? its kinda confusing atm. Its similiar to putting your ear against a seashell but barely noticable but only at a certain tone). 2 days later.... the new tone comes into the ear, and 6 days later its grown as loud as my current T (at times, volume seems to vary, maybe reactive, not sure yet), but only in the right ear ..... The ear sometimes feels fine and other times feels slightly full as well.

Really shitty. I have more hope though that this type of T might actually reduce or go away over time though, and my damn 1 year old helmet is up for sale. My fault for going with the cool looking one vs the the more expensive type I suppose. Stupid helmet haha. At least I feel like I deserved it this time.

So I'm trying to learn more about acoustic shock, and delayed onset.

 

Try and not panic too much (I understand this is very hard) & reassure yourself it will settle. It wasn’t your fault, a freak thing... so don’t be too hard on yourself! x

 

Thx, ya I have moments of anxiety (mostly because it increased volume so dramatically over a few days ... hopefully no more) but I have learned a lot from the first go around. So I'm throwing an ear plug in when i do noisy stuff, but otherwise I'm ok. I'm just trying to educate myself around this type of trama and to explain what happened in case things improve for others. If not, I have the tools to deal with it... I think haha.

Its a little my fault for not going with the better helmet. I knew that too.
It was a lot harder with the antibiotics, because it came from nowhere and it was unnecessary as well.
Harder to deal with something bad that happens from seemingly nothing.
If that makes sense.

 

Hey Patch, sorry to hear about your incident and I hope it settles down for you. As a former goalie myself I am very aware of what it's like to get hit in the mask. I would definitely suggest wearing earplugs when playing hockey for this exact reason. The ones I wore that I found to work quite well while playing are called surefire ep7 earplugs. I have also done a reasonable amount of research on masks if you are interested.

 

I assume it's the same as dropping a metal toaster and the sound that results is right next to your ear. I had this happen last week and it made me go instant deaf too as well as a more obvious pitch. It goes away after 5 minutes (in some cases 24 hours) but it does go away.

 

Pm'ed you. Be interested to know what you've found out Bertman

 

I hope so. Its been a week. Still hanging around.
If not, its only one ear, and its not worse than my other T (just a different tone).

Seems to have settled on a volume for now so that's good. Starts out barely noticeable in the am, but ramps up during the day. Using an earplug for noisy situations to help promote healing.

Now hoping for a decrease.

 

If it is noisy, protect both of your ears. Don't want to expose the good ear and end up damaging it as well.

 

Ya, I generally do when I do things like cut the grass, snowblow, movies, etc.
Wearing the extra plug for driving and what not right now.

Bertman has a good recommendation for earplugs that I want to get asap.

 

How do these earplugs work? If the caps are off does it give any protection?

One user review said that with the caps off he can hear people speak, but he is still protected from a gunshot...

 

I mean it's true to an extent, they do still offer pretty good protection with the caps off because it is an impulse (shooter) style filter which filters out loud noise while letting in quieter noise. However, in our situation there is no way I would rely on them for use as described in the review you mentioned. You have to remember that many people can tolerate a lot louder sounds than we can, so even though the reviewer feels they are "protected from a gunshot", I would think that the noise level still passing through the earplug is still too high for people in our situation. As I mentioned before, I used them for hockey to protect against shots to the mask, and while they did ok with the caps off, I preferred to have the caps in because it was still a bit loud for me personally.

If you want to read more about them look at the product spec sheet on the surefire website. And I believe the sourced filters are called Hocks noise braker filters, so you can google them to learn how they actually work.

 

I got hit right in the ear with a dodgeball about 4 years after my worsening; it caused instant near-blackout and intense instant EEEEEEEeeEEEEEEEEE in that ear which drowned out my normal tinnitus for a while, and it would not surprise me if I got slightly concussed.

This was around the time that I decided playing dodgeball with adults was a bad idea, but I do not believe this incident caused me any permanent harm, and as you were wearing a helmet I certainly hope you recover completely and quickly!