Chris
NES Member
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- May 24, 2005
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I've been recovering from a condition known as SSNHL since late March and as a result have been seeing an Audiologist.
SSNHL stands for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. Roughly 4000 cases occur in the US every year. Mainly in people older than 40. In effect, I woke up one day and could not hear anything in my right ear. There are a bunch of potential causes - in my case they are pretty sure it was a viral infection. The key important thing to know is that the best chance of recovery is to start a steroid treatment ASAP. The longer the delay, the less likely to recover. Many PCPs do not realize this and will try to treat it like a normal ear infection as the feeling to the patient is very similar. In fact, when I saw my doctor, I thought for sure I had a massive ear infection. Just about everyone I've seen since being referred to a specialist has said how lucky I was that my doctor started me on Prednisone right away.
So, what does this have to do with ear plugs?
Well, my hearing is coming back. Slowly. However, in all the testing I've had done, it seems my ears are very sensitive to noise. I've always thought so, but it is now pretty much confirmed. So, to help in noisy environments I am having some custom ear plugs made that have replaceable filters to help deal with the noisy environments. The plugs are designed for Musicians and can be had with 9, 15, or 25 decibel replaceable filters which are designed to attenuate the level of sound, but preserve the quality. They also come with a 30db solid plug for really loud environments. The best part is that these do not require any form of battery, nor do they use an open 'hole' as some cheaper filter products, but rather a set of diaphragms to retransmit the sound, but at lower levels. The result is supposed to be very similar to your natural ear's sound reception.
The interesting things that I learned in the fitting process is that you have to have a fairly deep set plug to eliminate your own voice or wind instruments sounding 'boomy' - This is a condition I've experienced many times with all kinds of ear plugs and one of the reason I have always prefered muffs over plugs when instructing. The key is to have the plug deep enough to reach the bone structure and most of us do not insert them that far. The other thing is that when you do have a good deep plug, some people will develop a need to cough. I seem to not have this issue, but as shooters, I wanted to spread this information as the last thing you want to happen when you are lining up your shot is to have the need to cough. It is possible that some of you are having this happen and not aware that it is caused by a reaction to your ear plugs being set deep.
Hope this information was useful to someone. (^_^)
Some links:
Musician earplugs
Audiologist that molded my plugs in Littleton, MA
Mass Eye and Ear page on SSNHL
I know someone will ask - The Musician earplugs with all the filters are $360. Not cheap at all. Each set of filters is $80. Unless you need the filters, I'd recommend sticking with the simple custom plugs which can be had at roughly $100. (not sure of the actual cost as I did not go this route)
Will post my review once I have had the plugs a while. Really looking forward to getting back shooting again.
SSNHL stands for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. Roughly 4000 cases occur in the US every year. Mainly in people older than 40. In effect, I woke up one day and could not hear anything in my right ear. There are a bunch of potential causes - in my case they are pretty sure it was a viral infection. The key important thing to know is that the best chance of recovery is to start a steroid treatment ASAP. The longer the delay, the less likely to recover. Many PCPs do not realize this and will try to treat it like a normal ear infection as the feeling to the patient is very similar. In fact, when I saw my doctor, I thought for sure I had a massive ear infection. Just about everyone I've seen since being referred to a specialist has said how lucky I was that my doctor started me on Prednisone right away.
So, what does this have to do with ear plugs?
Well, my hearing is coming back. Slowly. However, in all the testing I've had done, it seems my ears are very sensitive to noise. I've always thought so, but it is now pretty much confirmed. So, to help in noisy environments I am having some custom ear plugs made that have replaceable filters to help deal with the noisy environments. The plugs are designed for Musicians and can be had with 9, 15, or 25 decibel replaceable filters which are designed to attenuate the level of sound, but preserve the quality. They also come with a 30db solid plug for really loud environments. The best part is that these do not require any form of battery, nor do they use an open 'hole' as some cheaper filter products, but rather a set of diaphragms to retransmit the sound, but at lower levels. The result is supposed to be very similar to your natural ear's sound reception.
The interesting things that I learned in the fitting process is that you have to have a fairly deep set plug to eliminate your own voice or wind instruments sounding 'boomy' - This is a condition I've experienced many times with all kinds of ear plugs and one of the reason I have always prefered muffs over plugs when instructing. The key is to have the plug deep enough to reach the bone structure and most of us do not insert them that far. The other thing is that when you do have a good deep plug, some people will develop a need to cough. I seem to not have this issue, but as shooters, I wanted to spread this information as the last thing you want to happen when you are lining up your shot is to have the need to cough. It is possible that some of you are having this happen and not aware that it is caused by a reaction to your ear plugs being set deep.
Hope this information was useful to someone. (^_^)
Some links:
Musician earplugs
Audiologist that molded my plugs in Littleton, MA
Mass Eye and Ear page on SSNHL
I know someone will ask - The Musician earplugs with all the filters are $360. Not cheap at all. Each set of filters is $80. Unless you need the filters, I'd recommend sticking with the simple custom plugs which can be had at roughly $100. (not sure of the actual cost as I did not go this route)
Will post my review once I have had the plugs a while. Really looking forward to getting back shooting again.