My Tinnitus — Epilogue

Some time ago I wrote my success story titled "My Tinnitus - Final Chapter"

Yesterday, for the first time I went back to the scene of the crime - the shooting range where it all began. Now, I am not a big fan of shooting, which makes my case of getting tinnitus on the gun range even more ironic. But my friends like to shoot and they always invite me. I felt this was the last hurdle I had to overcome in my fight with tinnitus.

And so I went shooting clays with shotguns. I had in-ear protection even before I got out of the car, and my friends gave me over-ear protection, which is basically special headphones with noise cancelling hardware. We shot our guns for about 2 hours, during which I heard the noises but not the sharp, ear-piercing sounds that hurt my ears originally. I was still kind of scared that I was maybe doing my ears some additional damage without realizing it, but I didn't want to take my ear protection off while on the range.

When it was all said and done my ears were just fine. I walked off the range with a great feeling of relief knowing that nothing is off-limits as long as I make smart decisions. Life goes on, and life is good.

 

Any spikes since your success story? How is your tinnitus overall now?

 

No spikes. Overall, tinnitus has been reduced to some static noise when it's really quite. When I put on my double ear protection during shooting I heard that noise all the time. I am used to it so I can ignore it.

Occasionally, I would get random pulsatile tinnitus in either ear. It's unpleasant but happens only for a second or two and goes away. I am thinking it may be caused by stress. But I have also lost 8 lb since the last time it happened. I'm not overweight in general, but dropping a few pounds never hurts.

 

I think that's a success by anyone's standards!

 

¡¡Buena noches!! Estoy feliz por tu historia de éxito. Obtengo mi T de la misma manera que la tuya, disparando armas en un rango. T comienza hace 7 meses, ahora parece mejorar lentamente. ¿Cuál es la hora en que el tuyo mejora?
¿Cuántas rondas dispararon sin protección? Tengo el mío de 4-8 rondas.
¿Tiene pérdida de audición significativa?
y mi última pregunta es cuánto tiempo ha pasado para volver al rango para disparar en otra ocasión.
gracias. mis mejores deseos para ti.

 

Hola. Creo que T tardó aproximadamente un año en volver a la normalidad. Disparé muchas rondas. Tenía una protección suave dentro de la oreja, pero no estaba insertada correctamente. No creo que tenga pérdida de audición. Volví al campo de tiro después de aproximadamente 18 meses.
PD. La próxima vez, traduzca su pregunta a través de https://translate.google.com

 

Sorry to all, i usually write in english, but there is a problem with the automatic translation. thank you for your answer.

 

How does your audiogram look like? I have 15db on 3khz and 6khz and have very bad tinnitus and hyperacusis. It has been a year with it

 

I would be very cautious with this.

Guns are simply loud enough that they do cause small amounts of hearing damage, regardless of what protection you use. Shotguns and centerfire can be 150db+, which is loud enough to transmit damaging sound to your ear directly through your bones. If you go hang around shooting clubs, basically all the old grizzled dudes will be saying "WHAT?" a lot -- some of this may well be because people in the 60s/70s/80s were less diligent about earplugs, but the bottom line is that I've read a number of stories where people's initial tinnitus onset was following a shooting range with hearing protection used.

Indoor ranges are especially bad; I'll likely never visit another one, and I don't shoot anything bigger than .22s anymore. I mainly keep them around in case of rabid animals, and the occasional old TV that just needs to be executed.