Can manually clogging your sinuses protect your ears from gunblasts?

I don't know if everyone can do this, maybe it's like rolling your tongue where only some people can do it, but when I hold my nostrils shut and attempt to inhale through my nose, it plugs my ears. When I do this, my environment sounds much quieter, just as though I were wearing earplugs. This suggests that less noise is actually reaching my eardrums, implying that this could protect my ears from high decibal impulses to some degree. I cannot find any scientific information on this though. This would useful for self defense when you don't have time to fish around for earplugs and insert them.

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  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Lmao no?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      How do you know? I'm looking for someone who might actually have real info here. If my perception of sound decreases that seems to prove that something is obstructing sound from reaching my eardrums significantly.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Loud sounds (physical waves of energy) damage the cilia in your ear beyond repair. Blowing into your nose does nothing to protect them.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          How do you know? It obviously isn't possible for something to reduce the sound reaching your ears without also reducing the impulse reaching your ears. Even headphones that aren't designed for hearing protection protect your ears to some degree. Anything you put in or on your ears blocks impulse to some degree. When I plug my ears through my sinuses there is very clearly something going on there that is interfering with sound impulses getting through my ear canals.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            There is not a flap that covers your ear canal stopping the waves from going into it by blowing into your nose. Unless you physically cover the hole sound waves are coming in and damaging the cilia depending on the decibels.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              If that were true then the technique I'm describing would not reduce sound at all, yet it clearly does.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                It alters the tension of your ear drum changing your perception of sound. It does nothing to physically protect the ear.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                How do you know? Have you tried this technique? Has it been tested? If applying tension to the eardrum reduces sound, that means it reducing the ability impulses to affect it. Why would that magically not apply to gunshots to the exclusion of everything else?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Your ear drum is very soft, the more tension the easier it is to tear like a drum. It does not affect the transmission of sound waves through it into the inner ear and can in fact amplify it making it worse due to pressure differences. The only way to protect the ear is to block off the ear canal with something that would impede the sound waves trying to enter it.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If that were true then this technique would cause sounds to seem louder, not softer.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Not really, no.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        No, it would make it worse. Clogged sinuses make your hearing worse because the pressure difference in the ear is smaller but the overall ear pressure is larger. Part of your sinus's job is to give sound waves somewhere to dissipate, almost like a suppressor.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Do you have any sources or data to support that?

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    It’s not about noise it’s about pressure. Idk if they’re still trained to but in ww2 they trained soldiers to open their mouths when taking cover for explosions. You blowing your plugged nose is just causing unequal pressure between the inner ear and outer ear making the ear drum not be able to move, the pressure wave of the explosion is going to rip it apart. Opening the mouth, equalizes the pressure.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      That doesn't explain to me how it is possible to reduce impulse forces acting upon the eardrum without also reducing their consequences.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Take an open plastic bag and smash it, now blow it up with air and smash it. That’s your eardrum with unequal pressure getting hit by a pressure wave.

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Somewhat related but has anyone else noticed that earpro becomes a lot less effective if you swallow? I was doubled up with plugs and muffs at an indoor range and some homie came in with a 30-06 in the lane next to me and I noticed that.
    Probably something to do with swallowing and equalizing ear pressure right?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      When I swallow it dialates my ear canals. Maybe that's why. That's the main reason I wear muffs over plugs for training, I don't really need that much protection, it's just a failsafe.

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    You're fricking moronic. I hope you do this and eventually turn deaf so that you're less likely to reproduce and pass on your extra chromosomes.

    t. medgay

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Thanks doc

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Thanks doc

      Because you won't believe that you're moronic, I'm going to explain it to you.

      You have a tube that runs from your middle ear to your nasal sinuses called the eustachian tube.

      The eustachian tube serves several purposes, one of them being equalization of pressure on the other side of your eardrum.

      When the eustachian tube becomes blocked, which can happen for many reasons, it can cause your hearing to become muffled. This is because the pressure between the inner ear and outer ear is not able to equalize, causing the eardrum to bulge inward or outward.

      When the eardrum is strained by this pressure differential it does not conduct soundwaves in a way your brain has evolved to interpret. This does not mean that you're somehow being protected from the vibrations.

      Remember how your hearing is all fricked up underwater, too? Well you should be able to hear better underwater, given that energy waves travels better through denser materials. You don't, though, because your brain didn't evolved to interpret sound travelling through a medium other than air.

      Now go play on your sit and spin.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Interesting theory.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        How do you know?

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Which of these statements do you need source/clarification on?

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    it don't op, i shot a .25 yesterday with a bad sinus infection right now and my ears still rang sigh

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Worse than shooting one under normal conditions? Even a .22 pistol with standard pressure ammunition makes my ears ring.

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    I just want specific, scientifically authoritative information rather than a random stranger's theory. I can't be the only person in history who had this idea. There has to be an army or police department that tried it.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Try google? I don't know why you're pestering a mongolian throat-singing forum about your ideas for self-harm.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Thanks, never thought of that.

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I finally found a thread moronic enough for this question: would manual engagement of the tensor tympani before firing protect your ears from gunfire at all?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani_muscle

    I've always just used it to make rhythms in my head when bored, but maybe..

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I don't think that that's related to the phenomena of the ears becoming muffled from sinus pressure.

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Does anyone in this thread know what an eustacian tube is?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      [...]

      Because you won't believe that you're moronic, I'm going to explain it to you.

      You have a tube that runs from your middle ear to your nasal sinuses called the eustachian tube.

      The eustachian tube serves several purposes, one of them being equalization of pressure on the other side of your eardrum.

      When the eustachian tube becomes blocked, which can happen for many reasons, it can cause your hearing to become muffled. This is because the pressure between the inner ear and outer ear is not able to equalize, causing the eardrum to bulge inward or outward.

      When the eardrum is strained by this pressure differential it does not conduct soundwaves in a way your brain has evolved to interpret. This does not mean that you're somehow being protected from the vibrations.

      Remember how your hearing is all fricked up underwater, too? Well you should be able to hear better underwater, given that energy waves travels better through denser materials. You don't, though, because your brain didn't evolved to interpret sound travelling through a medium other than air.

      Now go play on your sit and spin.

      Are you even literate?

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Do it OP, prove those haters wrong, go and do it and make sure the gun is right next to your fricking ear when you shoot it.

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