Hearing Loss Prevention

What is odorless, invisible, tasteless, yet ultimately toxic? The answer is Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). While NIHL can be dangerous to the overall state of your hearing health, the good news is that NIHL is preventable! Fortunately, preventing NIHL is relatively easy. You don’t need high-tech equipment or expensive earplugs to prevent hearing loss; all you need to do is recognize when you’re in a situation that could potentially cause NIHL. Here are just a few examples of situations that can cause NIHL:

Construction workplaces where an employee is exposed to loud noises for long periods of time
Gunfire
Loud concerts
Household tasks such as vacuuming, using a blow drier, mowing the lawn, or cutting wood with an electric saw

In situations like these, the solution to hearing loss prevention is simple: wear ear protection. Ear protection is the key element to protecting your hearing – they come in all shapes, sizes and forms. Ear plugs can be very simple and inexpensive! Your hearing care professional at HearingLife can recommend the most efficient and cost effective protection for you. They can even make custom ear protection for your particular noise and hearing need environment. If you’re in a loud environment – put in a pair of earplugs or put on a pair of noise ear muffs – your hearing will thank you!

Additional Hearing Loss Prevention Techniques:

Although wearing air-tight earplugs is one solution to prevent hearing loss, there are also a couple of other things you can also do.

Be careful with headphones and volume, especially noise-silencing headphones. If you frequently listen to noise-silencing headphones on a high volume, consider lowering the volume, or lessoning your time spent wearing these headphones.
Give your ears a rest. Try to alternate high-volume activities with low-volume activities, such as reading, walking, or taking a quiet nap.

An integral part of hearing loss prevention is simply just visiting a HearingLife health clinic. At HearingLife, our trained Audiologists can look for signs of early hearing loss, give you tips on how to prevent hearing loss, and thoroughly examine your ears for potential hearing loss in the future. By visiting HearingLife, you can affirmatively take action of your hearing health; the more proactive you are with your hearing, the better chance you’ll have of preserving it. Come into one of HearingLife’s clinic to take our Hearing Evaluation; this is the first positive step towards living a long life with healthy hearing!