Professions that are may be more likely to cause tinnitus?

[Emma]

-I cant imagine construction workers having to work around so much noise, even with noise protection. The jack hammers-yikes!
-Bartenders- if the bar is very loud and they are working every night
- Air traffic controllers

I know there are alot of obvious one I am leaving out- your thoughts? Any find that their tinnitus is related to exposure at work?

Sorry the title is akwardly phrased- i cant edit it

 

[anderson]

Ok, this may sound odd, but I'm more or less convinced that for some reason programmers: just look at this forum. Click, radar, Louise, Map, mick, Fish, Markku (not sure), erik and also me. And those are just a few I've noticed when lurking here.

 

[Emma]

Ok, this may sound odd, but I'm more or less convinced that for some reason programmers: just look at this forum. Click, radar, Louise, Map, mick, Fish, Markku (not sure), erik and also me. And those are just a few I've noticed when lurking here.

Could it be coincidence? We know that some of the members you mentioned can pinpoint their cause- ear syringing and loud music exposure in two cases.

 

[anderson]

Well, definitely can be. After all mine is also most probably due to the noise trauma.

On the other hand my ENT told me once during an appoitment that this is quite common among IT guys. Maybe it's a bit harder for us to cope with it as Louise mentioned in another thread:

I think its more that we find it harder to cope with once its hit, so we are on here, the people who cope easily wont be on here. Maybe its something to do with programmers being very attentive to detail?Makes it hard to accept an imperfection, like its a 'bug'!

 

[Louise]

Ok, this may sound odd, but I'm more or less convinced that for some reason programmers: just look at this forum. Click, radar, Louise, Map, mick, Fish, Markku (not sure), erik and also me. And those are just a few I've noticed when lurking here.

There's DezDog too.

But like Emma said some of us know the reasons why we have it and its not our jobs. I still think its more likely that we are higher in number on here due to being a type of person who struggles with it.

Another thing is that as we are programmers we notice other programmers. I have noticed a few farmers on here too. Maybe there are other professions that are well represented too but we havent noticed them? I think this probably calls for another poll

 

[Emma]

I think this probably calls for another poll

Good idea Louise

 

[Emma]

How about pilots- arent they constantly dealing with pressure changes in their ears? Would this make them more prone to ear infections?

 

[click]

How about pilots- arent they constantly dealing with pressure changes in their ears? Would this make them more prone to ear infections?

There's a whole website devoted to pilots with tinnitus & middle ear problems.. I spent hours reading it all a few months ago.. some pretty clued up members on there.

When i get back to my PC I'll try and find it and post a link.

 

[Fish]

Army. Self-explanatory, veterans are the reason there is still some funding in this field of medicine...

I think the second biggest group will be musicians and people associated with music industry (not backed up by any data though, just personal experience). Screaming crowds and 100+ dB festival music can take it's toll...

Also, I am not really a programmer I just do a lot of tasks on a computer.

edit: I wanted to add some example from wikipedia: On July 15, 2009, in Ottawa, Canada, the band Kiss achieved a SPL of 136 dB measured during their live performance. After noise complaints from neighbors in the area, the band was forced to turn the volume down.

Harmful stupidity in my opinion.

 

[Markku]

How about pilots- arent they constantly dealing with pressure changes in their ears? Would this make them more prone to ear infections?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19198197

INTRODUCTION:
Frequent or constant tinnitus can be a problem for pilots because it can be distracting and/or interfere with communications in the cockpit. We studied tinnitus in a population of airline pilots to determine its prevalence and identify predictors.

METHODS:
A total of 418 male and 42 female pilots on duty in a Swedish airline returned a completed tinnitus questionnaire (response rate 79%). Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed; variables retained in the model included age, smoking, exposure to loud impulse noise during leisure time, previous work as a military pilot, years of employment as a commercial pilot, and type of aircraft. When available, the pilots' most recent routine audiometric test (N = 388) was used to study the association between hearing impairment and tinnitus.

RESULTS:
A total of 40% of respondents had experienced tinnitus for more than 5 min during the past year, 18% reported constant or severe tinnitus, and 12% had at some time visited a doctor for problems related to tinnitus. There were associations between tinnitus and age, impulse noise, and hearing impairment at 3, 4, and 6 kHz. There was no association with aircraft type or work as a military pilot. Pilots with tinnitus were more likely to report themselves disturbed by noise in the cockpit.

CONCLUSION:
These results show that tinnitus is relatively common among pilots and can create problems with sensitivity to noise. The frequency of tinnitus is most closely related to age, gender, exposure to high impulse noise during leisure time, and hearing impairment.