SUMMER HAS ARRIVED. When you put away the snowblower and get out the lawnmower, do not put away the ear protection you used while using that noisy snowblower. What? You weren’t using ear protection with the snowblower?
It’s never too late, or too early, to start protecting your ears from loud, damaging noise. Unlike other injuries to the body, noise exposure usually is not felt and causes no immediate symptoms. However, the end damage is permanent and accumulates over your lifetime. In other words, you are unaware that it is happening, and the effects of the damage (hearing loss and ringing in the ears) may not show up for years.
With extremely loud episodes of noise exposure, you may experience a muffled sound sensation and ringing for minutes, hours, or days following the exposure and then recover. However, the damage will catch up to your ears as they age. Repeated or prolonged noise exposure causes permanent hearing loss and often causes tinnitus (ringing or other sounds in the ears). If you have pre-existing hearing loss, noise protection is even more important since the damage will worsen your condition.
People often ask, “How loud is too loud?” Depending on the hours of exposure, any sound louder than 85 decibels (dB) can be damaging to the ears. The general rule is that if you must raise your voice to be heard in a loud situation, then you should be wearing hearing protection. Below is a chart showing the average loudness or intensity of some common sounds measured in decibels (dB):
30 dB—whispered speech
40 dB—refrigerator humming
55 dB—normal conversational speech
70 dB—highway noise
85-100 dB—average gas-powered lawn equipment such as weed trimmers, lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and snowblowers, as well as motorcycles and snowmobiles
100 dB—power saw
110 dB—chainsaw
165-175 dB—shotgun
A free, easy-to-download phone app will allow you to check noise levels with your smartphone. Search for “sound level meter, decibel meter” or similar terms in your app store. Whatever app you download, be sure to try it out before you find yourself in a noisy situation because you’ll want to be familiar with the various options available. Having a way to check your sound exposure will help you to monitor your noise exposure and need for ear protection.
A surprising fact about hearing loss caused by noise is that being in loud noise while being exposed to other factors at the same time (certain industrial chemicals like solvents, therapeutic drugs, and even during exercise) can more than double the amount of permanent hearing damage that occurs. This fact is alarming given the number of occupations that expose people to chemicals and noise at the same time. Moreover, it is a reminder to keep the music turned down while exercising!
Ear protection comes in the form of simple foam earplugs, ear muffs, and custom-made earplugs. All forms are effective if they are consistently and properly worn. Ear protection in noise should be worn by children as well as adults. Remembering to wear ear protection consistently in all loud environments, be it at work, home, or even at recreational events such as auto races or music concerts, is the key to protecting the ears.
At Northwest Ohio Hearing Clinic, we sell custom earplugs that can be used in various types of loud sound environments. Custom earplugs are made by taking silicone impressions of the ear canal and sending the impressions to a lab where the desired earplugs are manufactured out of a hypoallergenic material. Since they are custom-made to fit each ear, they are very comfortable to wear, especially for long periods of time. Some styles offer flexibility for different sound environments by using filters that allow for less sound reduction, for example a dentist who wants sound protection from the drill but still needs to hear speech, or for musicians who still need to monitor their instrument sound or other musicians around them.
Custom earplugs or earpieces are also available for water protection (swimming or showering) as well as for attaching to communication devices such as hands-free headsets, MP3 player earbuds, and stethoscopes. The same earmold impression process is used to have these custom earpieces manufactured.
While protecting your ears and hearing from loud noise or other dangerous substances may seem like an inconvenient hassle, the reward of better hearing is well worth it. Our goal at Northwest Ohio Hearing Clinic is to help our patients and their families hear all of the sounds of life, and protecting the ears and hearing is the number one way to achieve this. Please feel free to call us if you have any questions about hearing loss prevention and ear protection. We look forward to hearing from you!
Shelly Horvat, AuD, is a Doctor of Audiology with Northwest Ohio Hearing Clinic, located at 1125 Hospital Dr., Suite 50 in Toledo (419-383-4012) and 1601 Brigham Dr., Suite 160 in Perrysburg (419-873-4327).
