Take Care Of Your Hearing.....

[Dennis Peacock]

The good news is that I get to keep my hearing. The bad news is that it's costing me $5K to get the hearing aids I need for the type of hearing loss I have. I just wished I had known about hearing loss and causes early in my life. I was raised on a farm with tractors and such, loud lawn mowers and lawn tractors, chainsaws, weedeaters, gas blowers, power tools, wind noise from riding motorcycle as well as wind noise from riding/driving in a car/truck with the windows down (mainly because we didn't have a vehicle that had A/C in it) and loud music. Not to mention the noises I experienced when I was in the military "back in the day". :)

I am thankful that I still have my hearing, my eye sight, my voice, and my limbs to walk and work with. I just had no idea about things like this....only to find out that getting old isn't for the faint of heart nor the thinly weighted wallet/bank account.

So....my words of wisdom to you that are still young (10 thru 55 years old)....wear hearing protection. Take good care of your hearing!!!!

[Aaron Rosenthal]

In my house it's a loosing battle, but one I keep on having with my family.
I'm 74, never really went to rock concerts, keep custom fitted ear protection in my left pocket of my jeans.
Still, time is eroding my hearing. I don't ride my Harley with ear plugs, but it's only because I havn't found good ones that are comfy for my ears on long rides.
In the workshop, always.
It's a battle.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I wake up every morning trying to figure out where the running water I keep hearing is coming from. I have even gone outside and looked for it. Turns out it’s a faint ringing in my right ear. It is faint enough that I only notice it in the quiet of morning. I worked around aircraft when younger, but was VERY meticulous with hearing protection- best available over ear worn clock in to clock out. Sadly, I’ve skimped from time to time with table saw and circular saw use. I am now diligent with hearing protection as well as eye and lung protection. Please, folks, listen to me (pun intended) while you can. Protect your parts.

[John K Jordan]

So....my words of wisdom to you that are still young (10 thru 55 years old)....wear hearing protection. Take good care of your hearing!!!!

Good advice! Thank you for the reminder. A young girl from Israel berated a class full of woodturners at JCC (Frank Penta class) for not wearing hearing protection. (She came to visit the class and to get a magic wand from a famous wandmaker.:)) Until then I never really thought of woodturning as a particularly noisy activity.

Around here, almost no one wears hearing protection. I cringe when I see utility workers, tree service people, guys mowing lawns, carpenter, etc. without hearing protection. Or eye protection...

Amazon has plenty of great hearing protectors - I like the ear muff type. I even found some made to fit kids.

JKJ

[Ken Fitzgerald]

After 2 years of schools, I worked air traffic control maintenance for most of the remaining 6 years while in the US Navy. Being a young, indestructible male, though we were offered hearing protection, I don't remember ever using it. The last 8 months of my 8 years in the service, I worked on fast attack subs. When I took my "getting out, going home" physical, I had to take a hearing test. I was required to take it twice as the lady thought I was trying to get a pension for hearing loss. I had lost a lot of my high frequency hearing from driving up and down runways to get to GCA radars and across mat areas with jet engines running around me. Exposure to jet engine noise did affect my hearing but a disease caused me to wake up 8 years ago deaf.

Good hearing aids are expensive. Cochlear implants are many times more expensive. I was deaf for 18 of the longest months of my life! Now with the aid of a cochlear implant in one ear and a very powerful hearing aid in the other ear, I have some hearing restored.



Protect your hearing, wear safety glasses, use all safety devices on your tools, machines etc. If in doubt, if the little voice in your head says it not safe, listen to it!

[Lee Schierer]

As I drive by construction sites, both commercial and residential I see numerous workers operating loud pieces of equipment with no hearing protection. I've often cautioned workers I encounter to get adequate hearing protection and usually they look at me like I have a third eye or came from another planet. I have some minor hearing loss and slight ringing in my ears and I always wear ear protection when I am using loud tools. Three years ago I purchased some 3M tactical ear plugs that I wear when hunting to protect my ears from the gun shot. They are electronic and so I can hear normal conversation and even the pheasants that flush behind me at times yet a gun shot is reduced to nearly nothing.

[Wade Lippman]

I wake up every morning trying to figure out where the running water I keep hearing is coming from. I have even gone outside and looked for it. Turns out it’s a faint ringing in my right ear. It is faint enough that I only notice it in the quiet of morning.


Presumably you are referring to tinnitus? I hear a florescent fixture with a bad ballast in my left ear.
When I went to an audiologist, she sent me to an ENT because tinnitus in one ear is often caused by a brain tumor. (normally it is heard in both ears) Mine turned out not to be, but you might want to talk to someone about it.

A friend went deaf in one ear, but developed tinnitus in it. Talk about being kicked when you are down!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Presumably you are referring to tinnitus? I hear a florescent fixture with a bad ballast in my left ear.
When I went to an audiologist, she sent me to an ENT because tinnitus in one ear is often caused by a brain tumor. (normally it is heard in both ears) Mine turned out not to be, but you might want to talk to someone about it.

A friend went deaf in one ear, but developed tinnitus in it. Talk about being kicked when you are down!

Deaf people often have tinnitus in their ears. Even with my cochlear implant and my hearing aid in my other ear, I often have tinnitus in one or both ears, after I remove my hearing devices. There are a number of unproven causes of tinnitus from allergies to weather fronts and on......and on... Of course there are always "experts" who claim to have knowledge or a cure and when it fails for some, the same experts have no answers. Tinnitus in my case varies from a high pitched hissing sound to the loud roar of a jet engine. Some times it makes it tough to get to sleep!

[julian abram]

Great advice Dennis, hopefully the younger fellows will take notice and actively protect their hearing as well as eyesight. I was raised on a farm about 30 miles from you at Heber Springs and share all the same experiences, long hours on tractors, hay equipment, chainsaws, loud shop equipment, lots of gun fire, etc. all without hearing protection. After sudden deafness in 2014, I share the Cochlear experience with Ken.

[Terry Hatfield]

Wait. Why is the young line drawn at 55? :D

Seriously, good advice bro.

[Bill Dufour]

I find a logging helmet is great for all around protection. the face screen does not fog up and the ear protection is good. I like it when mowing the lawn as sun protection as well.
Bil lD

[John K Jordan]

I find a logging helmet is great for all around protection. the face screen does not fog up and the ear protection is good. I like it when mowing the lawn as sun protection as well.
Bil lD

I second that suggestion! I have two with the Stihl name and use them when chainsawing, weedwhacking, and when clearing brush and things on the tractor. The hard hat actually saved my head once on a tractor when a limb fell out of a tree. (Those limbs are called "widowmakers" for a reason. A neighbor needed 14 stitches on the top of his head after a branches from tree they were felling bumped another tree which bumped the third tree he was standing under.)

JKJ

[Alan Rutherford]

Hearing protection is an area where you really have to look beyond the hype, at least where firing-range-appropriate devices are concerned. You can pay a lot of money for electronic earmuffs that, when a loud noise like a gunshot occurs, simply turn off the microphone and become barely-adequate inert earmuffs. Good earmuffs and even foam earplugs can offer about 32db of protection. Many of the expensive electronic devices only give 24-26db of protection. I also saw a Winchester-branded earmuff that claimed good protection but when I read the fine print I saw that it's only at higher frequencies. The lower frequencies are where you need the protection more.

I agree about protecting your hearing. Having largely gotten away with a lot of carelessness in the past, I'm taking care of what I still have.

You've probably heard the one about "What's the most common thing you hear on a gun range?" "What'd you say?"

[Chris Parks]

When I was in the army in the early 70's they gave us bits of cotton wadding to shove in our ears, Guess what, it doesn't work so now I have Tinnitus which when the levels were tested is reckoned to be the loudest the tester has encountered. I did not think anything of the noise in my head until I saw a doco on TV showing some experimental treatments many years ago. The only time I can't hear it is when the table saw or thicknesser is going.

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, I can see myself having to follow that path at some point, too. My right ear has limited frequency and "loudness" capability for many years now and I suspect my left (my "good ear") is losing a little bit due to normal aging. Both of my parents needed hearing assistance, too. 'Hope to "hear" that you're hearing better soon!

[Ole Anderson]

As a teen I liked to listen to my music with headphones, back when the music industry was just transitioning to stereo. Add to that a particular Rupp Nitro II snowmobile I owned that had a terrific ring to its exhaust, and now I hear nothing over 4.5 khz. Tough when I oversee our sound system at church, "Ouch, hear that piercing feedback? What feedback?" I have a zero turn mower which are notoriously loud. I used to wear a set of Stihl earmuffs until I realized they did little for the low frequencies you get from a mower. So now I wear earplugs, much better. And tinnitus for so long in both ears, it rarely bothers me anymore. But I am thankful I am not deaf. Two things I am holding out on: no suspenders and no hearing aids, yet...

[Rod Sheridan]

Dennis, sorry to hear of your hearing loss.

I'm always wearing ear protection, either muffs, or muffs with a radio built in which I really like when blowing snow.

When I ride, I always wear ear plugs, it's amazing how much better I can hear with them in, and how less tired I am after riding long distances..........Rod.

[michael langman]

Earplugs have saved my hearing.
When I started out in the machine shop I found the noise of machining metal irritating. And I could concentrate better with ear plugs. Most of the other guys did not wear them and I always wondered why. Then I spent 20 years going into press rooms with 50-300 ton presses running nonstop, and dewalt 16 inch saws cutting aluminum extrusions every 30 seconds, and dozens of pneumatic riveting tools running nonstop.
It was like walking into a war zone every morning.
And those orange foam ear plugs have kept my hearing normal through it all.
When my wife and I go to church suppers we have to wear ear plugs now because the conversation in the room becomes too loud.

[Michael Weber]

Began a slow lifelong decline in hearing due to measles at 8 or so. I know a bit about the restrictons and isolation resulting from hearing loss. Take my word for it. Protect your hearing

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Began a slow lifelong decline in hearing due to measles at 8 or so. I know a bit about the restrictons and isolation resulting from hearing loss. Take my word for it. Protect your hearing
Michael, from someone who just before their 61st birthday woke up deaf. I discovered new meanings of the words "isolation" and "lonely"! The 16 months from that day until my CI was activated were the loneliest days of my life! I concur and understand my friend!

[Dennis Peacock]

Rod,
I've been riding my motorcycle with ear plugs for several years but in my early days of riding, I would never wear hearing protection, it just wasn't "cool". I lived my childhood days on a farm tractor with no cab. Shoot, our first tractor was cranked by hand and you had to be careful or it could break your arm from compression kick-back. Then we moved up to a newer old tractor that had electric start. That was really nice!! No more hand-cranking!!! I've also been around firearms all my life, to include the military. I just never had the education of protecting my hearing until after I got out of the military in 1981 and I primarily learned about hearing protection from woodworkers. I started woodworking in high school in 1974, some hearing protection was required in school but the big push was eye protection. Oh well, I have what I have and now I get to learn how to live life with hearing aids, when to use them and when to not use them. My education and experience starts this coming week. I'm hoping for the best in the ordeal.


Dennis, sorry to hear of your hearing loss.

I'm always wearing ear protection, either muffs, or muffs with a radio built in which I really like when blowing snow.

When I ride, I always wear ear plugs, it's amazing how much better I can hear with them in, and how less tired I am after riding long distances..........Rod.

[Charlie Hinton]

I grew up on the farm farm too and when mufflers rusted off the machines if they were replaced it was with a straight pipe.
Hunting was also a big part of my youth as well as going to the dirt track to watch the racing.
Of course there was never any hearing protection.

I was still in the Navy (ripe old age of 23) when I first became aware of the ringing in my ears.
I thought one of the machines was making a new noise and my friend wanted to know what the heck I was doing wandering around listening and trying to find where it was coming from.
Imagine that conversation where he was telling me I was hearing things and I was accusing him of being deaf.
The ringing would come and go but eventually it came and stayed.

Now I use hearing protection all the time, just trying to hang on to what I have left.

[Ted Calver]

Dennis, Check with the VA to see if it will cover the cost of your hearing aids.

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, Check with the VA to see if it will cover the cost of your hearing aids.

Excellent point. I know the VA covered at least some of the cost for my father's hearing aids.