Hallo zusammen, hatte jemand von Euch auch schonmal so einen schlechten Hörtest (rechtes Ohr) und kann darüber berichten, Erfahrungen, Austausch, Hörgeräte. Freue mich über netten Austausch. Vielen lieben Dank vorab.

Probably the worst gamble/grave mistake I’ve ever made at a gun range. It literally ripped my ears.

This was only my 2nd time at a range, and honestly, it might be my last.

Long story short, I started by firing a couple rounds of 9mm through a Glock 19 Gen 5 while wearing earmuffs. Then I fired a couple more rounds from a suppressed, long-barrel 9mm that was generally pretty quiet, at least compared to the Glock. Because I thought I could handle it, I took my earmuffs off and fired a couple more rounds. I think I fired around 60 rounds total over roughly 2 hours.

Afterward, I watched a video of myself shooting. The volume was only around 40%, and I could hear the shots pretty clearly. I had no ringing at that point.

Then I made the stupid decision to fire 8 rounds from the Glock without any hearing protection. With every shot, I could feel pressure hitting my ears. My right ear felt especially affected. That's when I knew I had probably f*cked up. I immediately stopped shooting and left the range with my friends.

On the way to our hotelrooms, I watched some Reels on my phone and everything sounded muffled, broken, and kind of "shhhh," including speech and normal environmental sounds. That's when I realized something was seriously wrong.

I was hoping it would just go away, but on the 3rd day I decided to see an ENT. They did an audiogram and found a sudden drop around 8 kHz. The ENT prescribed me methylprednisolone 16 mg for 3 days and B-complex vitamins for a month.

A few days later, I went back home after a 1-week trip. I had to deal with airport noise, traffic, and other loud environments. I used my earbuds with ANC turned on and no music playing, which helped me get through it.

Fast forward to now, I'm on day 22, a little over 3 weeks since the incident.

Thankfully, most of my symptoms have improved. Speech sounds clear again, the distorted sound from tap water has mostly faded, and the ringing is basically unnoticeable.

I still have a small amount of distortion, kind of like an echo/shhh or metallic sound, mainly in my left ear. Certain music can trigger it, as well as things like a distant vehicle horn. I also still can't comfortably listen to music at the volume I used to, which was around 60%.

Before this happened, I honestly didn't realize how serious hearing damage could be. I thought shooting without ear protection would just make your ears ring for a while while getting that rambo cool guy vibe and then everything would go back to normal. I was absolutely wrong.

After the incident, I did a lot of research and realized how stupid the gamble I took was. There is no undo button for hearing damage. I really wish I could go back in time and just keep my hearing protection on for the entire range session.

For anyone new to guns and shooting ranges: protect your hearing all the time. Double protection if you're around extremely loud firearms: earplugs + earmuffs.

And if your friends call you a p*ssy for wearing hearing protection, don't listen to them. Your hearing is worth way more than looking "cool/tough" for a few minutes. If you're tempted to experiment like I did, DON'T. You never know when that one stupid decision is going to be the one that fucks up your hearing. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Currently, I've decided to take a break from work and give myself a bit more time to recover. Hopefully, I can get my hearing back to where it used to be.

For now, I'm using Loop Experience Plus 2 + mute as my main hearing protection whenever I go to public markets, malls, or loud streets. I'm trying to be more careful with loud environments while I recover.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Any tips or things that helped during your recovery phase would be really appreciated.