Tinnitus, Hearing Loss, Hearing Difficulties, Etc...Discuss.

[biggun]

The noise of the wind buffering around the cab does me in. To the point is almost hurts and I can't concentrate.

Actually I will rephrase that, it doesn't really hurt but I find it extremely annoying.

Same as I find the noise of other people eating or the missus clanking about in the kitchen annoying. Especially if I am trying to listen to something. The exterior noise is all my brain seems to focus on and if I am talking to somebody all I can see is lips Moving and the Banging and other shit instead of words.

I think the tinitus is driving me mad.

 

[stig]

I'd guess it is exacerbating an already existing condition

 

[biggun]

I think you may be correct...

It's the Akvavit, I tell thee...!

 

[squisher]

Do you shoot a bunch of guns? My old foreman was deaf in his left ear from shooting. Needless to say he shot pretty much all the time lol. I'm sure being a fitter didn't help either. He said back in the day they would just beat asbestos insulation off with a hammer, no tie offs, no glasses, and would ride the crane ball crab style, 2 guys a trip lol.

No excessive gun discharging here. Rarely get to shoot.

 

[Cobleskill]

I have a half-helmet. After a few hour bike ride my ears ring from the wind. Never a good sign.

 

[stig]

I ride with one of those, too.
I always use ear plugs for longer trips and if I go fast.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

The air flows around the obstacles with pressure waves and swirls. The ears are made to react at the pressure waves, because the sound is that. So, the ears are constantly beaten during the ride, either by the air flow and by the loud motor noise.

Didn't you listen how quiet it becomes when you close the car's window?
you feel almost in weightlessness.
In a car, window opened, the head is about at the place where the air flow comes in the cabin after going round the windshield, and the left ear takes it first.
It should be interesting to see if the "left drivers" get the same trouble but on the right side.

 

[Nutball]

I'll put on hearing protection of it starts to rain hard while driving, or if i'm going long distances on a particularly rough interstate highway.

 

[Kaveman]

Ahh tinnitus my constant companion...

High caliber rifles and modified Harleys introduced us, and now I often have to have some kind of background noise to drown it out. Sometimes it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Wear your ear pro, or you'll meet my persistent, not so welcome friend.

 

[lxskllr]

I feel like I got lucky with my hearing. I didn't start wearing hearing protection til I got my 362 cause it was LOUD. After a few decades of loud music, construction sites, and highways, my hearing's still pretty good. I want to keep it that way. I wear protection on a lot of construction sites now, and shortening grass. Chainsaws also of course, but not always with the 2511. If it's just a quick cut, I don't bother. My uncle was stone deaf after WWII and a lifetime of farming. I don't want to be like him.

 

[Burnham]

Yup, losing your hearing is no fun. I hate it. The hearing aids help but are not a cure for the lost acuity. It is now and will always be an invisible barrier of lesser or greater magnitude between me and my beloved, and the rest of the world as well.

 

[Treeaddict]

@Burnham Sorry for your condition. I didn’t realize hearing aids fell so short. Was your decline caused by running saws at work?

 

[stikine]

@Burnham Sorry for your condition. I didn’t realize hearing aids fell so short. Was your decline caused by running saws at work?

Not to answer for Mister B but I'm guessing it's the accumulation of things (like me) that resulted in hearing loss. Hearing protection in our early days wasn't a known priority... you just did your job and got it done. Sadly, I am really noticing diminished hearing clarity for some reason...even with hearing protection.

 

[Treeaddict]

My clarity is affected for sure. I played drums in a metal band (read: loud) and used power tools. I was sloppy with hearing protection early on and a hearing test at 22 years of age showed minor loss.

I had an older customer who worked at a quarry when he was young. He told me that his foreman held up a pair of ear muffs and said “by law, I’m supposed to offer you these but nobody uses them” He refused the muffs as he believed he had tough ears and didn’t want to be the only guy with them.

 

[cory]

Good anecdotes, though, FTR, I think a small minority of folks have bullet proof ears and have little hearing loss despite years of noise abuse, just like some people smoke heavily for decades and never get lung cancer.

 

[Burnham]

@Burnham Sorry for your condition. I didn’t realize hearing aids fell so short. Was your decline caused by running saws at work?

Well, it's like Austin @stikine said, @Treeaddict ...an accumulation of damage from multiple sources.

As I've mentioned here a time or two, in my teens and early 20's I was very heavily into competitive shotgunning; trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Never used hearing pro back then in the 1960's and 70's. I think that's where the bulk of my damage likely is rooted.

By the time I was running saws as a pro with the USFS in my late 20's and beyond, I was pretty solid on use of ear plugs, or muffs, and later on both at the same time as I began to have noticeable hearing loss.

I may have been overly negative regarding my current condition, and the problems with hearing aids. Most folks I'm around never notice any problems in communications with me. The aids work well...it's just that they will never replace natural acute hearing in clarity and accuracy.

They also are fiddly in the extreme to manage; batteries, wax filters and domes, control toggles...all these are small, even tiny, so if you have any issues with hand dexterity or even strength, they can prove a challenge. Mental sharpness can be an issue in older people as well...remembering to put them on, keep the batteries charged or changed, daily or weekly cleaning and other maintenance. I'm fine on those scores so far, but many more elderly folks are not, and that day draws ever closer for me as well.

Cost can be a negative factor for many of us. Most health insurance has weak or no coverage for the aids themselves...mine is like that. So a pair of top-of-the-line units can easily run to 5 or 6 thousand dollars, out of pocket...with a normal life expectancy of 7-8 years. Mine are in that age range now, and although they are functioning well currently, manufacturers commonly drop parts and service on units past that.

All that said, I'm quite happy to have them, and they certainly improve my quality of life. Just some hard realities to deal with in day-to-day use.