Sudden Hearing Loss

Fitness enthusiasts strive to avoid putting bad things into their bodies. But they think nothing of subjecting their ears to thundering music in aerobics classes. Inside your ear is a fragile organ, the cochlea, that enables you to hear.

The No. 1 cause of hearing loss is chronic exposure to loud noise. Hearing impairment is more common in the elderly because by the time you’re 70, your ears have been bombarded with enough loudness to result in significant noise induced hearing loss(NIHL). Many people under 40 suffer from this and don’t know it. Unlike heart disease, hearing loss is never reversible!

When cochlear nerve cells are injured from loud volume, they’re gone forever. Over time, hearing becomes dulled as more and more of these neurons get destroyed by booming music.

When the neurons die, you feel no pain. There’s no swelling. No soreness. You’re tricked into believing no harm was done. You insist, My ears are fine! But how do you know your hearing wasn’t sharper five years ago?

Custom-made earplugs aren’t always a practical solution-sometimes the music is so loud that excessive volume can still get through.

This is no more about having sensitive ears, than avoiding refined sugar is about having sensitive blood. It’s about preserving the keen hearing that most people are born with.

How come the music is loud to her, and not to me?

You may have hearing loss, which prevents you from hearing the entire frequency range of the music. Your friend with the sensitive ears can detect more of the frequency range, which is why it’s loud to her. Your ears have not toughened up; they’ve become less efficient.

Temporary threshold shift (TTS) is when a person experiences temporary hearing loss following loud noise, says Andrew Resnick, M.S., CCC-A, FAAA, Supervisor of Audiology (the science of hearing) at Columbia-Presbyterian Eastside, New York, NY. In most cases, the ear recovers anywhere from several hours to several days later. Repeated exposure to noise that causes a TTS can certainly put someone at greater risk for permanent NIHL.
A decibel (dB) is a unit of sound volume. I have seen reports of noise levels in aerobics classes ranging from 100 to 120 dBs, says Resnick.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, exposure to 105 dBs would be safe for only one hour, 110 dBs for 30 minutes, 115 dBs for 15 minutes, and 120 dBs for 7.5 minutes. These numbers are scary, considering that aerobics classes go for one hour.

Resnick says, There was a study (Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2003, Vol. 14, No.1) in which they kept the sound level to 85 dBs in an aerobics class, and found it did not reduce the participants’ enjoyment or motivation.

How do I know the music is too loud?

Use a sound level meter. Over 105 dBs is too loud for one hour. If you must talk louder or strain to understand a conversation only five feet away, then lower the volume!

What if class participants beg to crank it up?

They won’t if at the beginning of the class, you announce that the volume is already set and will stay that way.

Symptoms of NIHL?

? Is it normal to request that a person repeat something when he’s near you? How often do you find yourself doing this?

? Must people yell your name several times from across a noisy room or down a hall before you can hear them?

? Have particular trouble understanding women’s’ and children’s’ voices? Hearing loss begins at higher frequencies, and women and kids speak at higher frequencies than do men.

? Ringing ears after exposure to high volume. But if there’s no ringing, do not assume there’s no damage! And ears that are already damaged can still sustain additional injury in loud settings!

These numbers don’t mean that hearing loss will absolutely occur with exposure, but that there is a risk of hearing damage, says Resnick. There are significant differences in individuals’ susceptibility to NIHL. Don’t let this risk vs. absolution lower your guard! After all, similarly, not everybody who smokes will get lung cancer, but we all know that smoking causes lung cancer, so why be foolish and take the risk?

By Jillita Horton

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Hearing Loss.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.