doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: Tinnitus and hearing.

Not sure how, but some screechy thing has moved into my ears (it simply can't be from unprotected shooting!). Because of that, when there is a background noise of some type (running water, wind, eating crunchy food, etc.) conversation with soft-voiced people is difficult now because I can't make out their words. It didn't happen overnight, but at nearly 63 it's bad enough to need some attention. I've read about some "new" technologies, and even went for a test and a fitting, but the "technology" was playing surf noises in the background while wearing tiny amplifiers. The cost of this technology is also pretty frightful. Does one just bite the bullet and pony up or are there some better alternatives?

Wait a couple of more years and when you get Medicare opt for the advantage supplement that covers hearing. Do you have VA coverage from prior military service?

Hearing aids are the one area of medical expense where negotiation is expected. I struck out with the VA, but used that eligibility to get my top of the line hearing aids for half the asking price...Geo

A bit off topic, but don't take for granted what you have left and protect it. I have been lucky in this regard, but I know good friends that turn off their hearing aids for ear protection.

If it's tinnitus there's currently no treatment or supplements.

Any chance you started taking aspirin for your heart? That, along with coffee and chocolate will aggravate tinnitus.

Sounds like run of the mill high frequency hearing loss. Go to Costco and get a free evaluation. They offer some of the best value in HA's.

I had hearing loss while in the service(Vietnam) feeding Ma-Deuce in a confined space, I went totally deaf but semi recovered but the corpsman never recoded the incident so I battled the VA for 50 yrs and they finally relented. My symptoms were close to yours, if I went to a party I might has well been alone as with the background noise I couldn't understand anything. The hearing aids are a big improvements, at least there is some peace at home, my wife was getting tired or repeating everything she said for 30 yrs. It is hard to remember to put them in everyday more so now with having to wear a mask. Do to my type of hearing loss I can't wear totally in the ear devices and need to have the behind the ear control box.

My tinnitus has been a constant for 50 years and now I actually have to listen for it to realize it is still there. When I do hearing test it is really loud and I have and hard time distinguish it from the tones they send.

I've lived with tinnitus for thirty years at least. Understanding what Rob said to be true, I've learned to put up with it and live normally. It requires more attention to what people are saying (especially your wife), but you can live a pretty normal life with it. Funny thing about mine is that once every great while it will change pitch for awhile. But, it never goes away. If I watch a person's mouth as they talk to me I can tell exactly what they say. It's when they mumble, with their head turned away from me, and the radio is on, that's really bad.

I think mine was caused by a combination of things. an inner ear boil that burst on or near an eardrum, as a child ............. shooting a lot for 40+ years without ear protection ..... working under jet fighter planes in the Navy with insufficient ear protection, and last but not least ...........driving open tractors for 20+ years before tractors with cabs became available.

You better believe I use ear protection, now ........ religiously. But, it's a matter of too little, too late.

I have bad tinnitus in both ears, the result of perforated eardrums and subsequent infections. I recognize everything posters have described, and if I can�t see someone is talking to me, I just don�t hear them. It has been about 10 years now, and you learn to live with it, but I can�t say it is easy, and getting through the day can be tough. Most �tricks� on offer, sometimes for substantial money, are just ways to distract by adding another noise... the bottom line is there is no cure or fix, the specialized receptor cells don�t grow back and your brain responds to the absence of signals from them by adding its own � the sounds you now hear in your head. Until medical science figures out a way to turn off the brain�s reaction, we�re stuck with this.

It really is an invisible disability. It can be totally debilitating, and yet those around you can�t see a problem, and it is hard to describe to someone who is not experiencing it.

I've also had tinnitus since I separated from the army 50 years ago and I've just learned to live with it. Like Stan I have trouble understanding what people say if they mumble with their head turned away - masks now mean that the most frequent words you'll probably hear from me are "huh" and "say again".

I'm a veteran with a 40% compensable disability but my hearing isn't down to the level that hearing aids will help. However, when they will help the VA will furnish.

Nothing will help with the tinnitus at all. Save your money if that's what you're trying to overcome. As Stan mentioned above just learn to live with it. And protect what you have left. Group conversations are almost impossible and no hearing aid on earth will really help that. Water running or any background noise will just garble whatever is said.

I developed my tinnitus early on the ranch with all the heavy equipment and dynamite we used in the 60's and am 78 now and it doesn't really annoy me. The ringing is always there but I'm not usually conscious of it. What I hate worst of all is with the loss of hearing high frequency I can no longer hear a quail call or even a rattlesnake! Advantage is there can be a squeak in the car that drives my wife nuts but I am totally oblivious to it--just doesn't exist!

Tinnitus may have saved my life. In 1968 I volunteered for the army (dumb, I know, but those were different times). I wanted to fly helicopters. Well, at my physical I just couldn't pass the hearing test. They thought I was trying to get out but convinced them I was volunteering. No go. They 4-f'd me right there! Rats! And that was going to be "my war". God moves in mysterious ways....all thanks to Him!

Recent over-view from the Mayo Clinic
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/symptoms-causes/syc-20350156

I believe Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation is still only available as part of a clinical trial.
This is a 6-2020 review article
https://www.ejao.org/journal/view.php?number=734

Rob makes a very important point regarding aspirin and ANY NSAID, including ibuprofen. My tinnitus is much worse and I'm almost deaf for a few days when forced to take a celebrex or naproxen.
Just 1 beer also worsens my tinnitus.

New onset tinnitus associated with one side sensorineural hearing loss is potential sign of an acoustic neuroma.

I have had tinnitus for almost 20 years. documented with VA due to a lot of loud noises in Afghanistan. and subsequent trips there and Iraq compounded it, even with hearing protection, it got worse because you didnt always have it have it. My las t tour we had headsets for our radios and that protected us some.
I cant hear shit when there is any background noise. I have to look directly at you when you talk and often cup my hand over my ear to help. Sleep sucks. Mine gets so loud I cant sleep. it ebbs and flows. never stops, never goes away. I'm stuck with it.
Now I shoot rifles and pistols with suppressors whenever possible . Of course wingshooting is not possible with suppressor
you can never get it back, hearing loss like that is permanent. nd I am stubborn and refuse to wear hearing aides even though the VA will provide.

Thanks everybody, and especially Dr. Drew. Yes, ibuprofen does seem to aggravate things and... since finding decent GF beer (after lots of years without) I've noticed that as well. Since I'm not a veteran, Costco will likely get a visit from me, just to keep my immediate family happy (repeating one's self does likely get a bit old after a while). Getting older is clearly not for sissies.

I have finally impressed upon my wife that I ask yes or no questions.

I want the answer first and the supporting data second.

So we do well when we follow those tenants.

Mike

p.s. for shotgun shooting (wing shooting) I use Peltor Tactcal 300 hearing protection. The 500s have blue tooth capability.

I'm sitting here listening to my ears ring as I type.
Chronic tinnitus.
It is what it is, nerves searching for signal.

I wear Pro-Ears Predator Gold earmuffs at all times in the field or on the range.
They amplify up to 8x, and sides are independently adjustable.

25db reduction, clipping over 85db, millisecond clipping response, and sub-second cycle times.

You can hear the bell stop 5 seconds before the Astro chimes at 200 yards.

There was a time today when the A-10's were too loud as they circled, but, I turned the earmuffs off, and it turns out it wasn't the muffs. LOL

My late father suffered from tinnitus (most likely a combination of the Army and shooting skeet for years without hearing protection). It was maddening for him, and when he bought the latest and greatest hearing aids, it only frustrated him more. Eventually, for target shooting, he settled on the custom plugs (like a 29 or 30 NR) with a pull tab on one, so that he could quickly pop it out and talk to whomever he was shooting with when he needed to. That seemed to work very well.

Lloyd, I don�t suppose you recently started taking Lasix? I�ve had tinnitus since I started taking it, and it is listed as one of the common side effects. If you�ve changed or started taking anything new, you might check the listed side effects - tinnitus is sometimes drug related.

When I left the Army, a friend insisted I file a VA claim for my high frequency hearing loss. I said I could live with it, but he browbeat me into applying. He really was a good friend, because applying before leaving saved me a lot of trouble over the years in justifying the claim. In those days, we went to the rifle range and were not even issued ear plugs ( cigarette filters work pretty well and we had them in C rations at least).
By the time I retired from the Corps of Engineers, they required wearing of ear muffs( maybe + plugs) to mow grass or drive a Humvee, much less operate a dozer.
Mike

Here is an interesting TED Talk on the science of hearing (and hearing loss).

https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_hudspeth_the_beautiful_mysterious_science_of_how_you_hear

This month's Scientific American has an article on the clinical trial mentioned by Drew. They might be on to something.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...g-in-the-ears1/

I've had tinnitus for years; VA diagnosed it as related to Vietnam and being a radio operator and gives me 10%. The bad is that it's always there though not overwhelming and is not too difficult to live with. The good thing is I can check my heart rate without a device or putting finger on artery. It does not effect the hearing. Apparently there are many varieties.

Don't tell VA but I'm not at all sure it comes from Vietnam...twin brother who served there at the same time, was a special force radio operator (11B4S) like me, was in as many firefights though not as many helicopter inserts, doesn't have it. Someday they'll get a handle on it. I don't feel guilty taking the 10% because they denied clear Agent Orange stuff....the jungle west of Ben Het to the tri-border area and over into Laos to the junction of highway 110 and 96 was a mercury induced waste-land.

Tom: No, haven't started anything new here. Am on a number of interesting potions to help recover from my Lyme's years but really, nothing other than that. The Lyme's treatments included many months (42) of hard-core antibiotics and anti-malarials that were known for inducing tinnitus. Besides my family's now-regular complaints, have resumed work and find myself in enough meetings where I'm at a significant disadvantage because of background noise. I will probably do the Costco thing in the near term. I'm also sensitive to protecting what I have left and will start to wear hearing protection more regularly.

I want to interject here that tinnitus and hearing loss are really 2 different things. I had tinnitus for 20-25 years before I had any significant hearing loss.
Go to Costco and get a hearing test and yes, if you have hearing loss by all means look into hearing aids. But you may not have the loss you think and hearing aids may not help much with tinnitus.

Hearing aids cannot help with Tinnitus. Tinnitus is the irreplaceable loss of those nerve endings that recognize high frequency sounds. The ringing you hear in the ears is the brain looking for those missing nerves to send signals. (My interpretation). Nothing will stop it or improve on it. Recoil Rob is correct, Tinnitus and hearing loss is not related. I have both and so far have avoided hearing aids. But conversations with any background noise are very difficult. Just that friends who buy the high dollar aids say they really don�t help that much in those environments. Tv shows with action scenes or background noise, which most have, are very difficult for me. I do wear a wireless headset to hear them. I also lip read a lot as many people do anyhow.

That�s my interpretation too, Joe.

I can remember being a kid 12 to 16 years old, free to finally pursue small game with a shotgun, and marveling over how our ears rang after a box or so of shells chasing rabbits squirrels pheasants blackbirds whatever.

Now, half a century later, that I can�t hear as well, and I have constant ringing in my ears, disappoints me. It is my own fault.

I could have avoided all of it with any kind of reasonable hearing protection, and in my line of work, PPE for hearing loss has been available for the last 30 years. I just chose to use it less frequently than I should have, having spent my entire career in noisy places, papermills being the worst.

Now, wearing independently adjustable pro ears headphones, I can hear the whistle of a Woodcock�s wings, the gabbling of a flock of mallards, the whistle of a Drake, and the bell stopping five seconds before my Astro alerts my watch.

So I�m making up with technology what I wasted in my wayward youth.

I am 79 years old and I began to have Tinnitus in my late 30's and by 10 years later it was terrible and constant 24 hours/day and remained that way until 3 years ago when an event occurred that reduced the ringing in my ears to almost nil--I would say it is about 5% at most of what I had in the past. When the event occurred it was so painful to me that I thought my hearing was completely damaged beyond ever returning--I had pain and a headache for days afterward.

I was at the rifle range 3 years ago and was preparing to shoot under one of the roof covered shooting benches next to a long haired redneck that I had seen at the range before and decided upon observing him that I should try to avoid being around him. Just as I was setting up and standing next to him 3 feet away without any warning to the others (to install hearing protection) preparing to shoot (and to me), he fired off a round the blast of which caused extreme pain in both of my ears for nearly one-month during which time I was barely able to hear.

Slowly after that event my "ringing" began to lessen and my hearing began to return to what it was before the idiot violated the rules of the rifle range. Now some days I have Zero ringing noise in my ears and the other days nearly nothing. I can now hear frequencies that I could not for 40 years.

Joe, I cannot recommend anyone try what happened to me to delete Tinnitus, but in my case there was something that would stop it or improve it, that even my Doctor was amazed about.

Before this event I was nearly completely deaf in my right ear and only about 30-40 hearing in my left ear; and I am still the same in that regard.

Just saw an ad for a product called Calmer by Flare Audio, that comments suggested was helpful.

I try not to think of the ringing and sleep with a fan running even in the wintertime. Bobby