Buccaneers

Do you know the high pitched sound a radio makes when it's not quite tuned to a station? The high pitched noise that, in its annoyance, takes you directly to the source to twiddle the knobs?

Well here's the bad news. If you don't protect your ears, you'll have that sound in your ears all the time, and with an auto control that turns the volume up when you're stressed and when you're in a quiet place, and at nights when you are trying to go to sleep.

The condition is called tinnitus. There is no cure. The good news, it's preventable!

Please, you younger indestructable blokes, wear hearing protection, and more importantly, particularly the older members, make sure you have the right equipment to allow that little guy, who loves to help grandpa, to safely work in your shop.

I used to think that eye damage would be terrible, "if I was blind I could not check out the girls!" Having tinnitus is worse. A bit like standing in a cesspool up to your chin and hoping no one makes waves.

Glenn

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In Jus Voco Spurius

Reply to
Glenn Cramond
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*Turns up Fear Factory* ;-)

Tim

-- In the immortal words of Ned Flanders: "No foot longs!" Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams

Glenn's right. Protect your ears. I'm 44, my ears have rung steady since I was about 37. Probably partially due to damage done in High School and College (very loud bands), and to a lot of hammering in the last ~28 years some of which was done without plugs or muffs. Protect your ears.

I miss silence. I don't have tinnitus as bad as some, but it's depressing as hell if I dwell on it. Mostly I get to forget about it by being busy. For the most part, tinnitus is as permanent as an amputation. Protect your ears.

If I'm hammering, or grinding, I find that I can do a better job if I'm wearing ear protection... I can hear better what the grinder is doing and I can hit the metal harder with the hammer because it doesn't hurt me to do so. Protect your ears.

There's probably some health hazard to doing this, but I've never had a problem: An excellent makeshift earplug is a square of toilet paper accordion-folded (not rolled) to about the size of a cigarette filter, placed gently in the ear canal, then soaked with (clean) water. Leave enough paper sticking out so you can get it out.

YMMV. Your ears are not shaped like mine. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a lawyer. Don't be stupid.

Protect your ears.

If you try to 'reply' to this message without fixing the dot, your reply will bounce. See below.

-- Carl West snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net

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Reply to
Carl West

I wear inexpensive full coverage muffs with a hard plastic shell and soft cushions, that are filled with a bit of foam, for operating most of my hand power tools like the drill, jigsaw, impact wrench, etc.

But not for the battery operated screwdriver or the drill press.

Yours,

Doug Goncz, Replikon Research, Seven Corners, VA Unpublished work Copyright 2003 Doug Goncz Fair use and Usenet distribution without restriction or fee Civil and criminal penalties for circumvention of any embedded encryption

Reply to
Doug Goncz

It was Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield's _Tubular Bells_ for me. Not to mention the '64 MGB driven at loud speeds and getting caught at the range with some guy with a Ruger .44 just before I got my earguards on. (At least, I think it was the MGB that caused my left ear to go sour before the right one....)

Pete Brooks

Reply to
pete brooks

I took a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum to the range one day in 1964. Fired 5 shots without ear protection. The ringing hasn't stopped since. But I've learned to live with it. Don't hear the telephone or doorbell, but the dog barks to alert me. But it's not as bad as going blind. I do wear ear protection when using the chain saw or the thickness planer, and I don't shoot anymore. harrym

Reply to
HarryM

Glenn,

It MIGHT be legal, and even safe. I would check into it.

I say it might be safe because I ride a motorcycle and wear hearing protection - ear plugs inside my helmet. The prolonged high-pitched wind noise is one of the most damaging frequencies for your ears. It also drowns out other noises. I find that when I wear ear plugs I can actually hear most sounds BETTER (my own engine, car horns, etc). Ear plugs tend to block out more of the higher pitched sounds (which are the most damaging) and let through the lower pitched sounds (horns). And even though sirens are high pitched, they are usually loud enough that I don't have any problem hearing them through the ear plugs.

The ear plugs have the added benefit of making me feel warmer (no, really!). It seems that on chilly days, the sound of the wind has the psychological effect of making it feel even colder. I know it's all in my head, but that's were it really counts!

-Chris

Reply to
Chris

Huh?

Gunner, pushing 50, with serious holes in his freq ranges. Big holes...

Liberals - Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. Benjamin Disraeli

Reply to
Gunner

Well, it isn't always preventable. Exposure to loud noises is thought to be one way to get it, or at least aggravate it, but there are other causes. Severe ear infection as a child is one common cause, as are high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

I've suffered with it most of my life. My hearing range still tests very good, even in the higher registers, but that damn ringing never stops. I usually mentally tune it out and don't even think about it, but since starting reading this thread, it has been in the front of my consciousness, and annoying as hell.

The most popular belief about tinnitus is that it is due to damaged auditory nerves. But I recently read a report where researchers placed a sensitive microphone in the ear canal of a sufferer and actually recorded the sound. Their theory is that it is a mechanical problem in the ear which actually generates the noise. If they're right, it may be possible some day to surgically repair the problem and get rid of the ringing.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

I swear mine is so loud I'm surprised it doesn't keep my wife awake. In my case I have Meniers which is another of those things they don't know the cause or any cure. The dizzy spells decrease as the hearing goes. I'm now almost completely deaf in my left ear but still have the ringing.

Stuart Johnson Red Oak, Texas

Reply to
Stuart Johnson

I did, actually. Spent a couple hours surfing yesterday, and could neither confirm nor deny. The FMCSA web site was unavailable. Sometimes things that are unavailable become so eventually, and some sites just never, ever work for me. grizzly.com for example, *always* times out. Something with my firewall maybe. No clue.

I can't hear sirens anyway. Trucks are LOUD.

Reply to
Silvan

Yeah, I can relate to that one too. Took my .45 ACP to the range one day. Forgot my ears. The range is a good distance away, so I figured "it won't hurt this one time."

I fired off one shot and came home. The ringing from that one *did* stop though. Or at least faded to practically nothing. I found it hard to believe that people used to shoot those damn things all day long in an age before anyone had even invented hearing protectors.

Really drives home the point of what total BS movies like Die Hard are. Shooting inside an HVAC duct while talking on a radio. Yeah right.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE did you say something?

Reply to
Silvan

Be careful--there's way more than one forme of tinnitus. I had "pulsitile tinnitus" in both ears (worse in the right--the left ringing tended to mask the pulse) to the point where I only needed a watch to get my pulse. After a bunch of tests, the closest guess was otosclerosis, where the stirrup bone (stapes for the latinophiles) is frozen to the middle ear by a spongy to hard bone mass. An interesting bit of microsurgery can clean things up, and I had to take my pulse the normal way.

Turns out the pulsitile tinnitus was a combination of a really good bone-to ear connectiuon, and the fact that external sounds were getting grounded out. Can't remember if the pulse came back the two times my left ear prothesis failed--if you are allergic to stainless--actually nickle--*tell the docs and make them research it*. Most people think that nickle allergy is strictly a skin condition, but I have the remnants of the anvil bone and a stainless implant to tell me otherwise. Titanium works OK (when installed correctly--failure number 1), as does the plastic/ceramic stuff they use when the middle ear bonework needs a forklift upgrade.

Pete Brooks

Reply to
pete brooks

consciousness,

Too late for me at 60, but that's good news for coming generations. The cause of my tinnitus would be hard to trace-- high fever as a kid, drill sergeant in the days when the Army said "ear plugs?", raced cars. The last time I fired a rifle without ear protection all the sirens of hell let loose.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Schmall

I really need to find out. I have a vague notion that canal plugs might be legal, but headphone types are not.

I'm continuing to look into it. I've been wanting to play with some noise cancellation goodies ever since I first read about the technology.

Now if somebody would come up with SWMBO cancelling headphones...

Reply to
Silvan

Argh! I thought it was only my bf who listened to Pink Floyd *and* Mike Oldfield. I had only a vague idea who Pink Floyd was when we met, and still have no clue who Mike Oldfield is. I'm coming around on Pink Floyd. A few have the songs have really grown on me (and has anyone heard Luther Right and the Wrongs doing The Wall, Pt 1? I love it, bf says that Syd Barrett must be turning over in his grave).

I think my causes were being too cool to wear ear protection through 6 years of punk rock band practices and shows, and then not wearing ear protection while working with a die grinder for hundreds of hours. :P I'm not deaf, but I'm getting a little hard of hearing.

chem

pete brooks wrote:

Reply to
chem

Heh. This reminds me of the story about the old man who was certifiably stone deaf.

But could hear the word 'whiskey' if it were uttered at teh barest of whisper, through three closed doors, two floors away.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Reply to
jim rozen

I was amused to see a council official with a frown and a sound meter at a Motorhead concert about 18 years ago. I thought that the sound levels were about right (112dB), but then I had been working on a power station site the week before and as soon as I walked into the hall I reached into my pocket for my plug type ear defenders :-)

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

"But you don't understand- this amp has a dial that goes up to 11"........

Reply to
ATP

My ears ring too.....I just wish I could answer them ;o) Cheers!

Reply to
Dominick Fiumara

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