Potential hearing loss?

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WaMason

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Went out shooting with a buddy up at Mt Baker and sighted in a couple of m91/30s.


I had purcased a pair if reusable eAr plugs and tried them out format of the day. Midway through the shoot I noticed my ear (left) was humming.
I swapped into another pair that I knew fit and worked but I fear the dg us done, two days later and ear us still "full" and humming.

Anyone had this happen and resolve?
 
as long as you were wearing some form of hearing protection......chances are there is no extensive permanent damage....

i know one time i was at the range, and the guy next to me was shooting a M44( indoors mind you).......i had in ear plugs and over ear plugs and it still wasnt enough..........

my ears also felt a bit iffy for a while after that......


but if it lasts more than a week i would see your doctor.............
 
More than likely, you did cause some kind of damage. I am saying that based on experience - I now where two hearing aids all the time.

Only hearing tests will verify that, which you should get regardless of whether the tinnitus goes away or not so you have a baseline for any future hearing tests to compare to!
 
If you hear ringing you have done permanent damage. It may be slight but it is permanent.
 
If you shoot, sooner or later you'll be exposed to more damaging sound than your ears can handle.

Thirty years or more in the machine shop, fifty five years shooting, only the shooting with protection, and I have pronounced hearing loss in the mid and high ranges.

Hearing aids are both expensive and a pain to use. They'll never replace your natural ears/drums/hearing.......Use fitted, good protection.
Shooting the big bore handguns I double up..my custom plugs and muffs.
 
Hopefully it is going away. Having hearing protection while it happened was the best thing you did!

I really don't think it will last you just pushed the protection factor that you were using. Sometimes I wear plugs and muffs if I know things are going to be loud.

Good luck!
 
The ringing that I have now sure is a daily reminder that I wish I'd had someone to teach me about all this stuff back a few years ago when I first started shooting. Firing off hundreds of rounds per session with a 91/30 and some pistol in .40 S&W without hearing protecting sure puts a damper on things down the road.
 
If you have good speakers or headphones, it's possible to run your own hearing test with a program like Audacity, which has a specified tone generator for frequencies up past 20kHz. Keep in mind that everyone loses some high-frequency hearing capacity over their lives, so unless you're under 20, don't expect to be able to hear anything above 18kHz.
 
ENT physician says

Mine says anytime you ring your ears with loud noise you have some damage. If you keep it up the damage is cumulative.The damaged nerves do not regenerate.

When I started shooting handguns 45 years ago ear muffs were referred to as "sissy muffs". So now I am a half deaf "he man". The ringing never goes away.

As I told my Son about several mistakes I made in life: You can learn from my mistakes or learn from your own.
 
Back in the day(1963-1990) very few wore any hearing protection on the ranges in the USMC and Army. Some used cigarette filters and cotton balls were made available by the corpsman. Add 2 trips to Southeast Asia on top of this and I have a very loud ringing in my ears.

In the military you have to get used to the noise. Ear protection could get you in serious trouble in combat. This was back in the day. I don't know what the policy for hearing protection in a combat zone is today.

I cannot stand to be in a quiet room I have to have a radio on to take my mind off the ringing.
 
camar said:
Back in the day(1963-1990) very few wore any hearing protection on the ranges in the USMC and Army. Some used cigarette filters and cotton balls were made available by the corpsman. Add 2 trips to Southeast Asia on top of this and I have a very loud ringing in my ears.

In the military you have to get used to the noise. Ear protection could get you in serious trouble in combat. This was back in the day. I don't know what the policy for hearing protection in a combat zone is today.
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I've had tinnitus since returning from duty in 1972. Multiple loud pow-pow-pow's beside me, from my own weapon and still wanting to hear every peep in the bush was cause enough I reckon. Depending on what I'm shooting I'll use in-ear plugs and OTE protection as well. When inserting your in ear pull your earlobe downward and backward while putting your plugs in, you'll get about the best "seal" possible (you may already be aware of this little trick) :)
 
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WHAT? HUH? SPEAK UP!

Anyone that does any good bit of shooting will have some degree (hopefully very little) of hearing loss. You should wear earplugs that fit properly whenever possible.
 
I had tinnitus for about 2 years now , it is annoying but its tolerable at least for me, mine sounds like the noise you hear on an airplane , its constant , never eases up , my wife doesnt understand , she thinks its "made up" , but Ive lived in a noisy environement ,and been around guns my whole life , I dont care what kind of protection you have , you shoot more than 10000 rounds per gun your gonna have problems , add motorcycles and machine shops, factories , your gonna get it even if you wear the right safety equipment ! One thing that bugs me is Coffee the cafeene increases the hummmm for me , but I cant help it I love coffee , I lay off every few days and it drops to a real low hum , when it first appears you "freak out" about it , then like everything else "you live with it" ,I would suggest if its really loud , turn a fan on when you sleep it will drown out the humm!
 
If you hear ringing you have done permanent damage. It may be slight but it is permanent.
Click to expand...

This. It sucks, and I wish I'd been more aware of it years ago. At 29, I'm hoping I can salvage what is left. I always wear plugs while shooting, riding my motorcycle, driving my deuce and a half, using hammers or any other time I believe there will be loud enough noise to cause damage. Ear infections cost me 60% of my hearing in the right ear at a very young age; I can't afford to lose any more.

And while ringing is an indicator of damage with lower pitch noises, high frequency can cause damage without that telltale sign.
 
Starting to clear up quite a bit. My main concern was that I have crisp virgin ears. At 25 I have the hearing of a teenager. Or had.... When I was working at BP I took a hearing test and they thought I was cheating due to the high frequencies I was hearing.

I will run that hearing test again though. Thanks for the suggestion to use Audacity.That will work really well.

Im picking up a pair of muffs to go over the earplugs after this experience. Anyone have any good tips on a pair in the $30-50 dollar range?
 
Starting to clear up quite a bit. My main concern was that I have crisp virgin ears. At 25 I have the hearing of a teenager. Or had.... When I was working at BP I took a hearing test and they thought I was cheating due to the high frequencies I was hearing.

I will run that hearing test again though. Thanks for the suggestion to use Audacity.That will work really well.

Im picking up a pair of muffs to go over the earplugs after this experience. Anyone have any good tips on a pair in the $30-50 dollar range?
Click to expand...

i wouldnt worry too much.....even if you did loose some of your high frequency hearing, its not likely to effect you in every day life.......


as for ear muffs......its really kind of a personal choice, some ear muffs fit better on different people...........really any earmuff made my a reputable company will be fine.....

i currently wear a pair of Howard leight T3......they are a little bulky but are comfortable to wear for long periods of time and offer good protection
 
Anyone that does any good bit of shooting will have some degree (hopefully very little) of hearing loss. You should wear earplugs that fit properly whenever possible.
Click to expand...
Always wearing good plugs and good muffs together can pretty much prevent hearing damage, at least in my experience. I just turned 40 and have very good hearing with no ringing, but on the other hand I rarely listen to music through earbuds and am careful about headphone volume.
 
After 4 years working in and around helicopters in the AF Air Rescue and going to the base gun range every chance I got my ears are bad and I now have two hearing aids. Hell, the AF even gave us flight line personnel ear plugs to wear, but they where too much trouble to put on and take off all the time, and I nevere saw John Wayne with ear plugs when he was shooting. Lesson learned. . .just a little too late.:banghead:
 
In the military you have to get used to the noise. Ear protection could get you in serious trouble in combat. This was back in the day. I don't know what the policy for hearing protection in a combat zone is today.
Click to expand...

Ear protection is required at all times on Army ranges (at least by the books and always enforced in unit's I've been in). We have 'combat earplugs' we are supposed to wear over here but it never happens. I'm not sure of the specific design, but when put in the ear one way it acts like a normal plug and dampens out all sound (such as when on a helicopter) and when flipped around it allows you to hear normal sounds such as voices but dampens sudden loud sounds, such as gunfire. I've never used them, never been issued them. If I'm shooting there are more important things on my mind than my hearing 20yrs from now.
 
10 years on active duty, exposure to a lot of aircraft engines, exposure to significant amounts of gunfire, including 105 howitzer and my hearing is still pretty ok. Just had a hearing test this month, have average hearing.

But then I've always worn hearing protection ,David Clarks on the flightline and in the air, foam plugs and occasionally muffs, depending if I'm bringing the M44 to the range.

At 31, it could be a lot worse.
 
at 59 tinnitus sucks . Too many years of guns, bikes, and boats with little or no ear pro, and now i hear ringing all the time, hearing aids are of no help either, so protect what you have, and wear plugs at the least, and double up above 100 db.
 
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