My Daily Noise Pollution — Need Your Opinions (to Plug or Not to Plug?)

[Digital Doc]

I have musician earplugs, but they irritate my ear badly. Plus they give a pretty bad occlusion effect so I can't use them in meetings, since I have to talk a lot there ... I have a speaker option, but almost every time I am on the phone, someone else in the office is also on the phone or talking to another person, so I hardly understand my phone - and when I use the ear capsule, I also have to turn the phone up to understand it against the other voices ... which is so dangerous ... I hate navigating through this f*cking everyday minefield without a detector ....

You may need a different size of musician earplugs, or a different brand. The one I purchased came with 3 sizes, and while I guessed I would have needed a large, it turned out the medium was the better fit.

Raising the volume of the ear capsule as you describe can be potentially damaging, and is hard to measure objectively the db's of. I would suggest you avoid it for a few days and see if it makes a difference. You describe raising the volume which I think can be damaging.

@Bill Bauer

No argument if you or others feel the need to drive with protection. There are many variables, including the type of car and the engine and its condition. Also the amount of traffic can figure into this. I am fortunate to have a newer car with double laminated glass to reduce the noise. I do keep the windows up to reduce the wind noise. I am relating my experience that I do not believe driving the car has caused any issues for me, although certainly others could be more sensitive.

 

[chaLLas]

People with broken bones feel pain. Many of us actually feel pain/discomfort or get spikes afterwards. If you are not getting any feedback from your body, then, like I said avoid all noises that are easy for you to avoid, but don't worry too much about the noises that you can't easily avoid.

It's hard to tell what my body is trying to tell me and what is actually caused by my anxiety. Maybe you remember my thread about me panicking about ear fullness and a spike from a squeeking door. That turned out to be nothing but my anxiety. Often, after exposure I thought that might be damaging, I got the feeling that my ears are full, but it seems like stress is causing it. It usually only lasts for a few hours or max. a day. It seems the same with spikes. After a noise exposure, I am focussing on my T to see if it got worse ... still I can't imagine that this could create new tones that I sometimes get ... it is very confusing and makes it hard to interpret the signs correctly.

I think you should try to worry less, while continuing to try to protect your ears when you can do so at a reasonable cost to you.

I will try, but of course I am still afraid of permanent spikes that I already got in the past, and afraif of the regret if I did not to everything to protect in such a case -_- it's a vicious cycle...

My posts arguing that people should be doing what they can to protect their ears, were addressed to people who got got consequences following exposure, but were told by the others that they should be ignoring those consequences. I am not sure what to make of your case. I think you ought to be ok, but you never know with T...

That's correct, you never know ... the exposure that definately gave me spikes and new sensations were very loud car hifi, ultrasonic cleaning at the dentist and an acoustic reflex test ... of course this is more damaging than daily noise, but I am always thinking that after every bad exposure, the ears are even more prone to damage, so maybe now is the time where daily noise might be damaging ...

 

[Bill Bauer]

Often, after exposure I thought that might be damaging, I got the feeling that my ears are full, but it seems like stress is causing it. It usually only lasts for a few hours or max. a day. It seems the same with spikes. After a noise exposure, I am focussing on my T to see if it got worse ... still I can't imagine that this could create new tones that I sometimes get ... it is very confusing and makes it hard to interpret the signs correctly.

I think that there is a chance that your ears are actually experiencing ear fullness and spikes...

 

[Julien87]

Well Bill protected himself the entire time and his T never went away, I have been reasonable with mine (avoiding clubs, concerts, etc) and mine hasn't gotten worse, so there's that I guess.

Same here, after 13 years.


Regarding driving: I made many many 3 hours driving trips without any protection (and it was on the highway, louder than in urban conditions). Never had any issue. I never gave it much thought actually, it's not like it's 90dB...

 

[Bill Bauer]

Well Bill protected himself the entire time and his T never went away

I prefer to not talk about my T for fear of jinxing it. Let me just say that there is a reason why I am enthusiastic about protection.

Same here, after 13 years.

It hasn't faded for 13 years...

 

[linearb]

Thank you for your time.

A couple thoughts.

When I lived in a big, noisy city, my noise exposure was a lot worse than it is now in the woods, but even at that -- I generally only wore plugs when I was riding subways, walking under the flight path of planes, or walking along busy roads by traffic. So, there's not much on your list I would ever have plugged for.

These days, the only things I use plugs for are driving at highway speeds with studded snow tires (which are very loud compared to normal all-weather tires), and even at that only if I'm going to be driving for more than an hour or two. I also use earplugs for really loud things, but that's not even on your list (chainsaws, other small gasoline engines, etc). And, I sleep with earplugs, but that's just to ensure sleep quality given wife/kid/cats being on different schedules.

So, my take is that if you're anything like me, if you can get your nervous system to just calm down a bit, much of this won't seem as "loud". That said -- getting my own system to calm down has involved a combination of living in the woods, meditation, and medication, so... everyone has to find their own path.

My short answer is that none of the things you mention seem "dangerous", but you should do whatever you need to feel comfortable and as calm as possible through this difficult time of your life.