Military Hearing Damage

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...isk-brain-injury-when-they-fire-heavy-weapons

Would these weapons also damage hearing even with ear plugs in?

 

I've never been around anything other than a gun, but I imagine those would absolutely cause hearing damage regardless of the kind of hearing protection you use. They're probably much louder than a hand gun.

 

@racerfish yea the one guy in the story had his ears bleed. That can't be good for the ears.

 

Probably.

I forget where I was, but I recall someone saying they got hearing loss and tinnitus after a 16" naval gun went off near them. I don't think any amount of hearing protection will make it safe standing next to one of these:

 

Incidence Rates of Tinnitus in Active Duty Military Service Members Between 2001 and 2015

Abstract

Purpose
Due to hazards in the contemporary operating environment, U.S. military service members are at increased risk for tinnitus. Previous research has characterized tinnitus prevalence in military veterans, but no population-based study of tinnitus has been conducted in active duty military service members. This study evaluated the incidence of tinnitus diagnoses in military electronic health records based on International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision (ICD-9) codes for active duty service members between 2001 and 2015.

Method
Data on 85,438 active duty military service members who served between 2001 and 2015 were drawn from the Defense Medical Epidemiological Database and stratified by race, age, sex, marital status, service branch, and military pay grade.

Results
The incidence rate of tinnitus in U.S. military service members (per 1,000) rose consistently from 1.84 in 2001 to 6.33 in 2015. Service members most often diagnosed with tinnitus were White (72%), married (72%), males (88%), in the enlisted pay grade of E-5 to E-9 (55%), in the Army (37%), and were 35 years of age or older (50%). Statistically significant differences (p < .001) were found between observed and expected counts across all 6 demographic variables.

Conclusions
This is the first study to assess the incidence rates of tinnitus in active duty service members. Although there are many risk factors for auditory damage in the contemporary military operating environment, the extant literature on tinnitus in active duty military service members is limited. Future studies should consider the relationship between tinnitus-related psychological comorbidity and objective health-related quality of life, as it impacts operational readiness in active duty military service members.

Source: https://lshss.pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1044/2019_AJA-19-0029

 

Only 6.33%? That's lower than the general population isn't it? I wonder how they define tinnitus?

I've read reports of up to 40% of veterans coming back from conflict having tinnitus. So they must be looking at the military in general.

 

it's 6 per 1000, so that's 0.6%.

Given that auditory issues are, by pure dollars spent, the biggest disability cost to the Veterans Administration, I take this study result with a large grain of salt.

I went to school in a town where bars ran until 4AM and noise ordinances were seldom enforced; I think my graduating class in college probably had a much higher rate of tinnitus than the 0.6% they find here, in a demographic of people who are 3-6 years older and fired machine guns professionally. I don't buy it.

 

I don't buy it either. The figure 0.6 is utter bullshit. I wonder who ordered the study? Even if they picked just those in sedentary military jobs, I still don't buy it. They did use the military's own database though, so I really wonder how unbiased and accurate the data is.

It's criminal (in my mind) the level of sound we are sometimes subjected to.

 

those in sedentary jobs still did basic and shot more bullets than most people will in their lifetimes

 

potentially. there is something called conductive hearing. our government is fucked up for not ensuring the hearing health of our brave soldiers isn't 100% covered.

 

There's really no level of hearing protection that will prevent damage from a number of battlefield realities: large bore weapons, artillery, jet engines, explosives. There's also no level of armor that will keep you from turning to red mist on an IED, and no level of psychological shielding to keep you from the realities of participating in human slaughter.

War is barbarism sanctified with the seal of government; expecting that any part of the health of our soldiers is "100% covered" is not possible. How many combat veterans do you know? The ones I know for whom hearing issues are the worst of it tend to be on the lucky side.

As far as colossal gov't agencies go, I think the military is pretty woke on hearing stuff, because it costs them so much money. That doesn't mean they're going to stop handing M16s to 19 year olds at 160db, because that's the business they are in.

I've talked to at least one veteran of Afghanistan who reported often not using the provided hearing protection at all while on patrol, out of fear that it would prevent them from hearing someone getting the drop on them. It's a shit situation and it's not one that you can go into and have any real expectation of coming out of alive, let alone with your senses and body intact.

This is not intended to be a condemnation of the military; this is just how things are.

I used to know a guy who had a loud unilateral EEEEEEEEEE after a naval cannon, I do not know what bore. He had never brought it up before and didn't seem especially bothered, but when I asked him if it sort of faded into the back of his consciousness he seemed puzzled and said "it's really loud; it's just there, you know? It's always there". He never brought it up again in the time I knew him, and always presented as an unusually cheery guy who bent over to help others.

 

War certainly is barbarism!! But it also seems to be part of the human condition.

I wonder when WW3 will take place? All these proxy wars will lead us to it eventually.

 

Prevalence of Tinnitus and Association with Self-Rated Health among Military Personnel Injured on Combat Deployment

Introduction
Tinnitus is an auditory problem frequently reported by military personnel and is currently responsible for 1 billion dollars annually in disability compensation. Recent military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan saw high levels of combat exposure coupled with a surge in blast weaponry, both of which can adversely affect hearing. The present study explored the prevalence of tinnitus and the association with self-rated health among military personnel injured during combat deployment.

Materials and Methods
A total of 1,026 U.S. military personnel who sustained an injury during operations (592 battle blast, 73 battle nonblast, 361 nonbattle) in Iraq were identified from clinical records. Post-Deployment Health Assessments administered at two separate points in time were used to identify self-reported tinnitus symptoms and self-rated health within 1 year of injury.

Results
Those with a battle blast injury had the highest prevalence of tinnitus with 19.1% and 31.3% on the first and second health assessments, respectively. In a multivariate model adjusting for combat exposure, concussion, posttraumatic stress disorder, and other covariates, tinnitus was associated with lower self-rated health for both the first (odds ratio [OR] = 3.31, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.07–5.30, P < 0.001) and second assessments (OR = 2.52, 95% CI = 1.76–3.61, P < 0.001).

Conclusions
Tinnitus is a common source of impairment among military personnel injured during combat deployment and is associated with poorer self-rated health. Future research should determine whether timing of assessment is linked to symptom recognition or reporting, and what interventions are best suited for ameliorating the negative impact of tinnitus.

Full article: https://academic.oup.com/milmed/article/185/9-10/e1608/5850963

 

just wanted to call this out because it speaks to the "window" period where noise damage has occurred but tinnitus has not yet set in. I've seen some study somewhere which concluded that listening to moderate volume white noise during that period could prevent tinnitus from starting, and I remember reading an anecdote from a soldier exposed to some kind of blast, who got a treatment where he was kept in darkness and a very specific auditory environment for 72 hours or something.

 

@linearb: hi, indeed it would be interesting to find the study you mentioned.

 

I think this was it, unsure if this has been tried in humans, or with more severe trauma.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170605133503.htm

"Mild hearing loss from exposure to less than one hour of loud noise" nearly describes my own situation, though... more like 90 mins.