Lets see if my experiences help anyone, I grew up running farm equipment with straight pipes for exhaust stacks, stood close to hundreds of drag race engines with open exhaust, airplane engines screaming at full throttle setting fuel pressures, and ran tools/equipment that are very loud including air hammers with zero ear protection, it wasnt thought of back then.
I have shot tens of thousands of rounds of shotgun and high powered rifle rounds, no hearing protection during those years
Fast forward to the late nineties, after six years of working with ag chemicals I ended up with dysautonomia due to toxic effects of solvent, almost identical to agent orange syndrome.
I started having ears that rang nonstop, so loud I was afraid a plane would home in on the signal and try landing on me, it was unbearable.
My doctor at the time attributed it to many years of going unprotected and said I had to live with it, nothing could be done about it.
Funny thing, when I was being tested for chemical exposures I noticed the ringing would calm down, or get worse, way worse, what the heck?
I mentioned this do my doctor, part of my testing for chemical reactions was to keep an hourly daily register on what I had to eat and drink and how I felt a half hour, hour, three hours and so on later to see how combinations of foods and their additives would affect the many reactions I suffer with.
We were trying to see what chemicals in foods affected me worse, phenol, glycerides, salts, many forms of alcohols that are used in foods, meds, etc.
Red dyes, yellow dyes, on and on, these things could be tied back to the chemicals I sprayed and how they were related.
I started noticing that certain foods or combos of foods made it worse and it depended on what chemicals were used to preserve them, nitrates, xanthan gum, and numerous others.
After about six months of eliminating a lot of those things the ringing became almost nonexistent, then I drank a mountain dew, good Lord !! the ringing started immediately ! and it was horrendous! 48 hours later it subsided.
Long story short, in the last 22 years I have become attuned to what will set it off and what wont, sometimes I forget and eat or drink something that affects it, then suffer with it until my body processes it out of itself.
At my shop, I have control over what chemicals I can use and what I cant, and sometimes what I have to use cannot be avoided so its mask up, put on the neoprene gloves and hope to heaven that the gloves wont dissolve before I am done with it, I dont use that stuff that very often and I try to pawn that job off if I can.
I gotta be honest, somedays fumes from outboards especially two strokes can make me loonier than a shithouse rat, dizzy, hallucinations etc, not much fun, but I struggle through it.
I will mention sugars and salts while I am at it, any synthetic sweetener makes my ears ring terribly, when I drink soda it has to have real sugar in it.
Salts, MSG, I have to ask, how is it legal for some of this poison to be used??
My point is, start paying attention to what you eat and drink and how it affects your ringing ears, it will take a while, but if you can even get a little relief it will be worth the time spent, trust me on that as it is very nice to sleep without a garret turbine screaming you to sleep.
