Great Thread on Hacker News About Hearing Loss and Tinnitus

[Canadaman]

There's a great discussion thread on Hacker News about hearing loss, started by a guy who suffered serious acoustic trauma from dropping a toilet cistern lid. Aside from the original article, the comments is a gold mine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16723099

In the thread:

• Some success stories of people's T going away years after acoustic trauma (!)
• Dangers to watch out for you wouldn't think of. E.g. hearing damage from dropping weights in the gym
• Discussion of long-term earplug use.
• Discussions of using in-ear sound-isolating monitors to listen to sound in high-volume environments ("I've started to just wear those in ear monitors around even without listening to anything. The ear plug feature is actually really great. I can get on muni or bart in the Bay Area with them and listen to a book at 3-4 clicks of iPhone volume. It's pretty great to get used to things being quiet.")

Just putting this here because I got a lot of value from reading the whole thread; some of you may too.

 

[Bill Bauer]

DAMN! I wish someone were to advise me of

When I was doing my military service another conscript fired his rifle down into the ground as we where standing close together without any hearing protection on. Seconds later our captain orders us to put the hearing protection on and leads us down to a completely dark cellar with beds in it. We then had to lay there for 48 hours in complete silence with noise canceling ear protection on with only breaks for toilet visits and quick supervised snacks. Two weeks later we all took hearing tests that got compared with the tests we took when we joined the military and none of us had any permanent damage.

Not sure the complete silence helped with healing, but the science behind the decision to have us do that was that the little hairs in the ear heals faster if it's not stimulated.

 

[Contrast]

@Bill Bauer
very interesting and it makes sense. But still that experiment was risky AF

 

[Bill Bauer]

But still that experiment was risky AF

Why?

 

[Contrast]

Why?

what if it would have caused permanent hearing loss?

 

[Bill Bauer]

what if it would have caused permanent hearing loss?

How could this happen? In other words, I can see how being exposed to more noise for 48 hours can cause hearing loss, but not how not doing "something that could cause hearing loss" might cause hearing loss.

 

[Bill Bauer]

I don't know what to make of

Also: earplugs, earplugs, earplugs. I keep foam earplugs on me at all times. I have some in my fifth pants pocket, I keep some in a pill container on my keyring, some in my backpack, in my car, etc. I cut them in half; the half size fits easier and takes up less space, and the slightly lower sound attenuation is actually more useful for me in most circumstances.

I go through a lot of ear plugs this way, and a few years ago I realized that some of them degrade over time such that they become roughly half as effective. The closed cell foam seems to wear out somehow. I started wearing these degraded plugs more and more often, to the point that I now wear them most of the time. Always when I'm out of the house, and most of the time at home as well. They can be cleaned by soaking in alcohol. Alcohol works well on ears too, but most people's ears need no or very sparse cleaning.

I've worn these low-performance earplugs nearly non-stop for years now and my hearing has recovered some of the sensitivity of my youth. When I started leaving them in all the time I was a bit like an elderly person, asking people to repeat themselves frequently. This went away as my sensitivity improved, and after maybe six months my plugged hearing was as good as my formerly unplugged hearing.

Now I kinda feel naked without them. If I'm doing something loud, like working on a table saw, I'll put in fresh ear plugs, or wear extra protection like muffs.

 

[Bobby B]

We have 2 animal studies showing that exposing ears to moderate sounds right after trauma provided better hair cells recovery than complete silence

 

[Clark]

@Canadaman wow the link is very informative and positive, another helpful information for the people

 

[Canadaman]

We have 2 animal studies showing that exposing ears to moderate sounds right after trauma provided better hair cells recovery than complete silence

Very interesting, can you provide any links?