It All Adds Up

posted 01/12/2009
Happy New Year! I would like to take this opportunity to suggest a possible New Year's resolution to you that is very near and dear to me: protect your hearing in 2009!! I know, you've all heard it before. However, I feel it bears repeating. Ours is a very noisy world. Even out here in our peaceful islands, we can still be exposed to a dangerous amount of noise.

Take a moment to think about the noise producers in your lives. Do you use a hairdryer? A chainsaw, weed whacker or lawnmower? Maybe you fly planes, work on a construction crew or use amplified musical instruments. Or perhaps you prefer your MP3 player to be set at max. Keep in mind: it all adds up. Any time you are exposed to high levels of sound, you put yourself at risk of developing a permanent hearing loss.

HOW DOES SOUND HURT MY EARS? When your ears are exposed to high level sounds, or even moderate sounds for long periods of time, the microscopic hair cells responsible for processing sound in the cochlea, or organ of hearing in the ear, are damaged and sometimes completely destroyed. After multiple exposures to the damaging sound, the hair cells simply do not recover. Once these hair cells are gone, they do not return. The hair cells that are destroyed first are the ones responsible for processing high pitched sounds. One common sign of damage is high pitched ringing that you continue to hear after the sound has discontinued. Another sign of damage to the hair cells is difficulty understanding speech when in background noise. As the damage progresses with more and more exposure, it also becomes difficult to understand the speech of women and children.

HOW CAN I PROTECT MY EARS? The key in determining if a sound is dangerous is determining how loud it is as well as how long you will be exposed to it. Since most of us do not carry around a sound level meter, here are some guidelines for when sound is too loud:

You have to raise your voice to be understood

Your hearing seems muffled or you experience ringing in your ears after the sound has stopped or

You feel any pain in response to the sound

When you are exposed to loud sounds, wear earplugs or get away from the sound. Even a sound that doesn't seem that loud has the potential to damage your ears if you are exposed to it for a length of time.

BUT I'M A MUSICIAN AND I DO NOT LIKE EARPLUGS! Traditional foam earplugs can distort the frequency response of any incoming sound, including music. As musicians rely on their superior ability to use frequency, or pitch, information, this is entirely unacceptable. We have a solution for you: Musician's earplugs. These are earplugs made with special filters that maintain the integrity of the frequency spectrum, and your ears. They are now available in inexpensive modular or custom-fitted models.

BUT I NEED TO HEAR ON MY JOB SITE! This is a major concern for folks who work at jobs where loud noise is present. It is important to hear instructions and also important to hear warnings of danger. It is also very difficult to insert and remove earplugs all day long. However, there are now earplugs with special venting that actually make it easier to hear speech in loud background noise than without them.

These days there are fewer and fewer excuses to not protect your ears. As an audiologist, I see people on a daily basis who suffer the consequences of too much noise. So here's to a brand new year- and to your precious sense of hearing.

Stacie Baisch, Au.D., CCC-A is a Doctor of Audiology at Island Hearing Healthcare, located inside the San Juan Holistic Healthcare offices. She can be reached at 378-2330.

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