Hearing loss as with any loss is difficult to understand or relate to until you experience it first hand. Unfortunately most all hearing loss is permanent. Most people especially teenagers don’t have a clue how they are damaging their hearing. For that fact, many weekend woodworkers don’t realize how their hobby is destroying their hearing over time.
This post is going to be off topic of wood working; however, stick with me I think it will open your eyes to the hard of hearing and hearing impaired world.
Exposing your ears to high decibels of sound for prolonged periods of time has the same effect to the ears as multiple sun burns has to the skin. The damage is cumulative. Each time you expose your ears to loud noises your hearing is affected. The amount of loss varies based on the dBA of the sound, how long where you exposed to it, your age, and how many previous loud experiences have you had.
A good friend of mine in his mid fifties has lost over 30 percent of his hearing. Mostly due to using woodworking and lawn and garden power tools without using hearing protection. The ironic thing is that he has a grown in her thirties daughter who has been hearing impaired since the age of three. She lost her hearing from a case of sudden hearing loss syndrome. You would think that seeing the difficulties she has had with hearing aides and hearing in noisy places that he would use hearing protection. Nope. And now he is beginning to pay the price.
Hearing aids are a good tool to help people with hearing loss to regain some of their hearing. However, they do not restore your hearing. My father who has destroyed his hearing via long term exposure to very loud power tools in small spaces constantly complains that his hearing aid makes everything louder but not clearer.
Most hearing aids on the market today amplify and have rudimentary filtering capabilities. An aid can be set to filter a certain frequency. The problem is the filtering is fixed it is not adaptive. The aid will always filter the set frequency.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a hearing impaired person in a noisy environment such as a crowed restaurant or sporting event? The person most likely is reading your lips and is unable to ‘hear’ your words because of all of the background noise.
If you know of or have an acquaintance that is hearing impaired ask them what it is like attempting to deal with a hearing world. I think you will be enlightened with their feelings and observations.
Do the right thing and find the right hearing protection and protect your hearing from loud damaging noises.
