Hearing Loss

Armored farmer said:

I wish i knew back then.......

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But we were all invincible back then

I don't know the level of my hearing loss. Human speech can get garbled into any background noise, but I can make out little sounds in machinery that don't belong, better than others. My neighbor across the street, on the other hand, has essentially never worn hearing protection for bird hunting or shotgun practice in 4 decades. I can hear high pitched noises that he can't. Like squirrels and birds chirping away in a nearby tree.

Some of my hearing loss is definitely from firearms. In one .357 revolver episode, my right ear rang for 3 months straight. That ear will still act up on occasion. However, like others, my exposure to loud music, loud cars, loud motorcycles, and loud machinery have all added to any firearm related hearing problem.

The last two days I was inside a manufacturing facility on a repair job. Nearby was a machine that makes whack-whack-whack sounds at the rate of 20,000 to 40,000 per hour. Geez, I had to seek out the plant provided hearing protection due to that headache causing machine.

Tinnitus in my left ear, pretty bad, and some in my right ear, but most of the damage was done, during the early years, of playing drums, as my monitor was to my left, all those years. I am sure shooting was also a factor. If I only would have considered the cost, in the latter years...

A couple of close quarters serious social encounters 40 years ago left me with a bad case of Tinnitus. I hear cicadas 24/7.

I was always taught to wear ear protection while shooting. I don't find it enjoyable to shoot without it, aside for hunting. But that's usually only a few shots.

All my hearing damage has been work related. With this job I've been alot better. Especially using them damn air hammers hey are loud in a tin walled shop. Now my last job I worked for a 3rd party contractor who had the contract with CSX to load and unload rail cars. Done so via pump, conveyor, and air pressure for most liquids. You haven't heard loud unless you open up the 2" ball valve on top of a freshley emptied rail car that's got about 50-75 psi built up in a 25000 gallon rail car. That is enough to make your brain rattle in your head .LOL. I've been alot better at protecting my ears at work since than.

Went all thru the USMC, as well as prior to that went hunting ducks, partridge, rabbits, pheasant, quail, and deer, engaged in different shooting sports, and never even heard of shooting causing a hearing defect, that is until I went on the police department back in early 70's had to wear earing protection when on the range. Well in the late 70's,, was involved in an ambush, and my partner shot right close to my left ear in fact it was so close it left powder burns on ear lobe. I had ringing in my ear for at least two weeks afterward, anyway I could feel my hearing fading a little each year, to where I couldn't even decipher normal talk. Ended up wearing a hearing aid in each ear about 10-15 years later.

I've got a good buddy that has done more than his share of shooting and is in his early 80's and has never lost any hearing, so go figure, I to this day wish I could hear half as well as he does, maybe if it wasn't for that close encounter, way back when, oh well.

Now every time I go out shooting I have those type of hearing aids that knock out the sounds that are a certain amount over the decibels that are acceptable. Even so I still wear hearing muffs even though they feel somewhat uncomfortable, but I have to be able to hear my granddaughters when they talk to me.

Deafness (mild) is one thing - but the tinnitus. Ugh. I sleep with a fan on every night. Shooting, motorcycles, circular saws, M80s (as a kid), you name it. It all adds up. When I take my daughters shooting now, I make them double up on hearing protection (plugs and muffs).

Been shooting since my early teens. Both long guns and hand guns. There were tractors and chainsaws involved too. Right handed. Started with .22s, then 30-30, on to .357 Blackhawk revolver, 30-06 and .300 Win Mag. Shooting rats in a chicken coop with the .357 loaded with #9 shot did not help the situation. I had a random hearing test at work one time and the technician thought his hearing machine was broken. Left ear considerably worse than the right ear. I cannot hear the 8 or 10 rightmost keys on a piano. Emergency sirens have to be close before I hear them. Ears ring all the time. Conversations in group situations very difficult as are phone conversations. I have had hearing aids for several years and they do help but not in every situation. Now at 78 I wish I had known about hearing protection when I started and strongly encourage everybody to use protection - always.

Bob
WB8NQW

Most of us that have served in the military have hearing problems . My ears haven't stopped ringing from serving a combat tour in Vietnam , that's along time ago almost 51 years May 17 . I always use hearing protection when shooting but I'm always saying " what".

cw308 said:

Most of us that have served in the military have hearing problems . My ears haven't stopped ringing from serving a combat tour in Vietnam , that's along time ago almost 51 years May 17 . I always use hearing protection when shooting but I'm always saying " what".

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That's correct. The rate of hearing loss among Veterans is very high. It could be one reason why the VA will give hearing aids to every Veteran, service connected or not.

This begs the question in my mind if we are any closer to a deregulation of suppressors? Honestly I don't care about shooting suppressed, but in a home defense situation, I see a real benefit. Indoor shooting, even if I have muffs on isn't going to save the ears of others in my home.

I did all the hearing killing stuff for years before hearing protect was available. Guns, tractors, motorcycles, hotrods, amplified guitars. big hammers beating on steel, etc. I guess I'm lucky although I did start using hearing protecting shortly after it became available. My hearing test, simplified, shows I'm half deaf. Most of the upper ranges are gone unless they are pretty loud but I can hear better now than in the past. NO, it's not hearing aids. My tinnitus has deminished until it's not there any more unless I think about it and it's not very loud when I do. I guess it just got tired. My main problem is understanding speech when there is back ground noise, especially women with high pitched voices. I tried hearing aids and all I got was louder speech that I still couldn't understand.

I was told by a doctor that most men suffer more hearing loss in their left ear. He said because of driving with an open window.
Of course that's for guys who don't shoot.
My father-in-law had bad hearing loss, but he spent his working life in a screw machine shop.....but he also would take out racoons and skunks with a 12 ga from time to time.
But my guess is the screw machines 10 hours a day for 45 years that did it.

I have Tinnitus in both ears. Right is a little worse off, but my hearing is still fairly decent though. It started in 1972.

Like an idiot, I was sighting in my new Interarms 300 Win Mag with a Redfield 3 x 9 scope. But of course, no ear protection! You can't get anymore stupid than that for sure!

My hearing is surprisingly good considering all of the stupid things that I've done. Working in a shipyard, in carnivals, as a roadie and electrician's assistant for a major rock/folk band, tree-cutting, off-road motorcycling, oval track, smithing, and other noisy activities have done me more damage than any of my shooting.
-Possibly because I usually shot black powder when I was younger and stupider...

Iggy said:

A couple of close quarters serious social encounters 40 years ago left me with a bad case of Tinnitus. I hear cicadas 24/7.

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Cicadas, snare drums, hissing teapots, I hear them all, which is why I wear electronic muffs even when hunting; I want to keep what I have left.

An elementary school nurse told my mother she should enroll me in sign language classes. Mine has been that bad for that long.

The VA audiologist who did the exam for my disability claim said he recommended the claim not be approved. When asked why he said “you never should have been allowed to enlist in the first place your hearing was that bad.”

My new hearing aids should be ready to pick up from the VA any time.

Yes, they do help with the tinnitus.

I grew up shooting from prob age 10. when I was bout 13 I built a brass framed cap and ball revolver from a kit. 44 cal.

at that time nobody ever heard of ear plugs or ear muffs. that 44 had a wicked crack that even a 357 mag couldn't match. maybe I was loading it too hot, idk.

then later at about 15 I got a 357 mag ruger. I hunted with it a lot.mostly with warm handloads.

the fact that I can hear anything at all is amazing. add in years of heavy equipment operating and loud Harley Davidsons. it is truly amazing.

when in my late 20's I worked with a old ex law enforcement officer.. he was also a gun enthusiast and mostly deaf.

he caught me running a bulldozer with no earplugs and jerked me off it and gave me a good talking too about hearing loss.

I never forgot that.

from that day on I wore plugs AND muffs when at all possible when shooting and always plugs when running equipment.

I just had a bunch of guys come over to sight in deer rifles before deer season. I offered plug and or muffs, no takers.

I went back in the house and let them shoot. I aint ther mama.

As others have said, it’s not the silence but the constant ringing. I will not shoot without muffs, duck hunting, birds, deer. Anything that might increase the ringing is a no no for me. I shoot a 500sw with 350 grain and red dot because it is adequate for hunting and not loud. Full house 44 mag with 296 from my model 69 is simply too loud, even with double plugs. Recoil not a problem, noise is the limiting factor now.

I can trace my hearing damage to one primary incident, when I left my house to do some function testing of AR loads next to the garage and realized i forgot to bring my muffs. I realized it about two steps out of the door, but I was 23 and thought "it'll be fine, i'm only going to fire a few rounds." I fired maybe 20rds of .223 out of a 16" barrel with a standard A2 flash hider, then maybe 10rds from my 9mm, probably an isosceles stance. Since then I have had 4 and a half years of constant ringing and now turn subtitles on for everything. The good thing about lessons you learn the hard way is that you only have to learn them once

Yep, after being an idiot shooting a high power rifle with no ear protection, it didn't take long for me to become a stickler for both ear and eye protection. No matter what I'm doing it's both! Always! No exceptions!

Iggy said:

bad case of Tinnitus

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I've *always* had tinnitus; from the age of four that I know for sure. It has gotten louder over the years, and of course now it's loud enough it's hard to hear conversation over it.

A year or so the continuous "uuuuuuuuuuuuuu" sound was joined intermittently by "eeeeeeeeeee", and they occasionally heterodyne together. I didn't know there was such a thing as "two-toned tinnitus."

Yay, me... [sigh]

While I absolutely agree that you should ALWAYS use hearing protection in high level noise environments there are other things that can cause tinnitus and hearing problems besides loud sounds. Mine was the result of a birth defect. Neck injuries can also cause it (like whiplash). I spent most of my life working on flight lines around running jet engines (many times with my skull literally inches from running jet engines) and many years of exposure to gunfire. And I ALWAYS wore ear protection. In the Air Force we were tested every 30 days for hearing loss and I always tested off the top of the chart for years. My hearing was actually more sensitive than the machines could measure. The technicians would sometimes run the test again because they could not believe what the chart was showing. I thought I was very fortunate. Then when I hit 50 I rapidly developed tinnitus so bad that I was sure it was going to drive me to suicide. It turns out that I was born with cervical spinal stenosis and the vertebra in my neck were crushing my auditory nerves and there was nothing the doctors could do. So 50 years of playing guitar is just a memory now. Forrest Gump was right - life really is like a box of chocolates. It could be worse though - at least I've never voted for a Democrat or bought a Glock.........

rpenmanparker said:

I am a leftie. I was shooting my 12 gauge about three weeks ago by myself, and after about 10 rounds I realized I had forgotten my ear protection. I fixed that, but suffered some discomfort for a few hours. Since then when I am in a nosiy environment, my own voice crackles in my RIGHT ear like a blown tweeter. I know every assault on the ears causes some damage, but it is hard for me to believe 10 shotgun rounds are causing such an obvious problem.

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So today I shot the shotgun with a new system: high efficiency foam plugs (-31 dB) for hearing protection and low profile electronic muffs for a little extra protection but mainly for amplification of the not dangerous sounds like speech. With both in place I get really great protection and can hear normal speech. That enables me to talk to a companion or take a lesson without straining to hear. It is a really great system.

The low profile muffs still do interfere with my gun stock a little. I actually raised the left side muff to clear the stock (leftie, remember?). That reduces the protection from that side of the muff, but it doesn't matter since the plugs do such a good job on their own. But raising the muff a little doesn't keep the amplifier from broadcasting into my left ear just fine. Howard Leight Impact Sport Bolt model. The older and cheaper Impact Sport model would probably do just as well, but I bought the Bolt because it was a little bit lower profile. I hoped it would clear the stock when fully in position. Live and learn!

I have greater loss in my right ear than the left. I shoot left handed and have no idea of the two are related.