Hearing loss and the dangers to your health

[MillCreek]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/well/live/hearing-loss-threatens-mind-life-and-limb.html?action=click&module=Discovery&pgtype=Homepage

Interesting to me, having had a significant bilateral hearing loss since birth.

[Kingcreek]

I've had significant hearing loss and tinnitus since about age 14.
My cousin was driving a ranch truck across a hay field when his dad's 257 Roberts let go of the sear in the gun rack behind my head.
I was tested a couple times years ago and was told there weren't any hearing aids that would help me. I know they are much better now and at some point I'll have to do something.

[MillCreek]

I've had significant hearing loss and tinnitus since about age 14.
My cousin was driving a ranch truck across a hay field when his dad's 257 Roberts let go of the sear in the gun rack behind my head.
I was tested a couple times years ago and was told there weren't any hearing aids that would help me. I know they are much better now and at some point I'll have to do something.

If you can get your hearing loss service connected, you get free hearing aids from the VA.  The VA is the largest dispenser of hearing aids in the country, followed by Costco.  Given that they typically cost thousands of dollars and are not covered by insurance, I would look into a service connection.

[230RN]

!0dB loss in right ear due to 12 ga going off three feet away.  Tinnitis in both ears now  Doesn't seem to affect hearing dangerous things, but things get jumbled up in otherwise noisy conditins (parties, restaurants, the like).

Did some unprotected he-man shooting before hearing protection got to be a "thing."

Sometimes hard to understand people talking where I can't see their lips, so some un- or sub-conscious lip-reading snuck in there over the years. (Didn't realize I was doing that until about 10 years ago.)

I absolutely cannot abide marble-mouths with indistinct enunciation, like at drive-in fast food order kiosks.  I don't expect everyone to have gone to the Columbia School of Broadcasting to learn microphone technique and how to be an announcer, but....

And some foreign accents... jeeze.

Terry, 230RN

[Ron]

Minor hearing loss with some tinnitus also.

Probably from concerts in my yout and working unprotected in mechanical rooms for many years.

Like 230RN, I have problems when there is a lot of background noise.

With my high caffeine intake and hearing issues sometimes I’m a loud talker.

Hearing loss runs on my fathers side on top of it all.

[Ben]

My dad is getting ridiculously hard of hearing, but still won't wear the $5000 or of hearing aids that have been purchased for him over the years. I printed the article for him to read. He has always had ridiculously good balance, but has gotten unstable over the past couple of years. It might just be a coincidental part of getting old, but the "hard of hearing people fall down" part was interesting.

As for me, I did some stupid stuff lack of hearing protection-wise when I was <20. After I started working, it was in jobs where they were big on things like hearing protection, and it started me off on "good hearing behavior" that I've continued to the present.

Nevertheless, it appears the dumb stuff I did as a kid came back to bite me. I still hear what I would say is well, but do have problems with a lot of background noise. I have a clock on the wall at my computer desk that I can hear ticking in the next room over on a quiet evening. Yet if people are talking in a normal voice in a loud room, forget about it. Also, weirdly, TV has gotten harder to understand of late. That might be related to how the sound is created (e.g., background music muffling voices), but I often have the CC running just so I don't have to pause to repeat some important dialogue that I've missed.

Also, I've had the tinnitus going for probably a good 15 years now, but it's only started getting "irritable" in the last year or so. Before I could always just shove it to the background. Now sometimes it shoves back.

[230RN]

Forgot to add that aspirin exaggerates the tinnitius.

Ticking clocks can sometimes be really distracting.  I bought two silent sweep full-face clocks and put one in the bedroom and one in the living room, where I do most of my computer stuff.

Mine are Brooke & Co, brand.  Amazon also sells silent sweep movements really cheap, $7.99 for two of them with three sets of hands:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K5QT287/ref=sspa_dk_detail_0?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B07K5QT287&pd_rd_w=r50Yj&pf_rd_p=21517efd-b385-405b-a405-9a37af61b5b4&pd_rd_wg=5csik&pf_rd_r=HVWAFSBPX96GVE98SAKM&pd_rd_r=b57e7fba-0da2-11e9-a244-c1f675b879f4

They also sell pendulum movements.

[Ben]

I like the ticking clock. If I can hear the steady sound of that, it means I'm in a quiet and soothing place. I'm a guy who likes quiet. I don't know how I managed living so many years in a condo complex with a bajillion distracting noises.

[Pb]

Count your blessings you don't have hyperacusis like me.