6 ms·

A little PSA: there is some evidence that magnesium can help prevent/cure acute noise-induced hearing loss. Google returns several reputable studies. Also: ea

A little PSA: there is some evidence that magnesium can help prevent/cure acute noise-induced hearing loss. Google returns several reputable studies. Also: earplugs, earplugs, earplugs. I keep foam earplugs on me at all times. I have some in my fifth pants pocket, I keep some in a pill container on my keyring, some in my backpack, in my car, etc. I cut them in half; the half size fits easier and takes up less space, and the slightly lower sound attenuation is actually more useful for me in most circumstances. I go through a lot of ear plugs this way, and a few years ago I realized that some of them degrade over time such that they become roughly half as effective. The closed cell foam seems to wear out somehow. I started wearing these degraded plugs more and more often, to the point that I now wear them most of the time. Always when I'm out of the house, and most of the time at home as well. They can be cleaned by soaking in alcohol. Alcohol works well on ears too, but most people's ears need no or very sparse cleaning. I've worn these low-performance earplugs nearly non-stop for years now and my hearing has recovered some of the sensitivity of my youth. When I started leaving them in all the time I was a bit like an elderly person, asking people to repeat themselves frequently. This went away as my sensitivity improved, and after maybe six months my plugged hearing was as good as my formerly unplugged hearing. Now I kinda feel naked without them. If I'm doing something loud, like working on a table saw, I'll put in fresh ear plugs, or wear extra protection like muffs.

JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
This is one of the weirder things I’ve ever read here and I read a lot of strange behaviors here. You wear earplugs full time man, that’s not normal, you are missing out on unimpeded hearing due to a fear of hearing loss that likely is not based on science. Normal level sounds don’t degrade hearing as far as I know and loud sounds aren’t that common, certainly not enough to warrant wearing earplugs full time. https://www.american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hearing-loss/#intensity https://www.american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hea... You could expose yourself to 8 hours a day of a lawnmower at 90 dB and 90% of the population would be fine.
- matte_black 9y ago
  It’s not that strange. I wear earplugs (although they are low profile hidden ones) if I’m going to a loud venue, such as a really loud bar, or club, or a concert. It increases my enjoyment of these places and also makes it easier to have conversations with people.
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    I do that, they cost about €20. Many people wear them at a metal concert, I'm a bit unusual in wearing them in an ordinary metal bar (or even a loud pub) too. If I'm taking a crowded metro train home, I might keep them in since I don't want to hear the drunk people. But I wouldn't wear them outside those times.
  - dag11 9y ago
    Same, I keep discreet earplugs on my key chain and discreetly wear them in bars or similar unexpectedly loud places. Most people don't notice them even when they know I do this this. I'm a big fan of Earasers, which I bought for rock concerts, because they're generic musicians ear plugs (and therefore don't muffle people's voices), and they're practically unnoticeable. For actual rock concerts, I have molded musicians ear plugs which make the music sound just incredible, and I have no discomfort afterwards. I also highly recommend those.
  - Exuma 9y ago
    Key phrase being... " if I’m going to a loud venue" The guy above wears them 24/7
    - nate_meurer 9y ago
      Well, I probably should have said, "nearly non-stop during waking hours". I leave them out at night. Also note that my "all-day" earplugs are these certain ones that have lost a lot of their effectiveness due to aging or something. I go through enough earplugs that I end up with a lot of these. I'm guessing I get about 10-15 dB out of them, and my ears/brain have adapted to this level of attenuation so well that my "plugged" hearing is functionally as good as other people's unimpeded hearing. For example, I listen to music and TV at the same levels as everyone else, and I'm not asking people to repeat themselves any more than anyone else. The habit of keeping them in at all times during waking hours just ensures they're in place when I need them, like when I drop a dish, or a sticky weight falls on a weight stack at 24-hour fitness, as in the top post in this thread. Shit like that happens all the time to me, and I got really sick of saying, "damn I should have had earplugs in." EDIT: Also, cut them in half. Much more usable for me, they're almost as effective, and hardly noticeable. Very rarely does someone notice that I have them in.
creep 9y ago
Why did you start wearing earplugs? I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community-- not that these fears are unfounded, but many of such types tend to obsess. Is this the case with you? What happened to you that impacted your life to this point?
- sandov 9y ago
  >I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community I wish I was in the online music community before getting tinnitus. My tinnitus doesn't bother me now, but it did make me unhappy for a couple of months
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  I have some tinnitus, but probably no more than the average person and it rarely bothers me. No, I just really like my hearing. I resolved to always wear earplugs out of the house one day after a particularly nasty bus with squealing brakes made my ears ring. I ride my bike a lot so that just made sense. At home, I was putting in ear plugs when putting away dishes, because I want to just get that shit done, pulling handfuls out of the dishwasher and stacking them hard and fast, like you do if you're not a priss. Except the sound was making me act pretty damn prissy. I cook a lot and I'm impatient, so that just made sense too. Some other things like that caused me to just keep plugs on hand all the time. But I realized I couldn't possibly predict all of the potentially damaging acoustic events in life. It also occurred to me that maybe the full 30+ dB earplug is overkill for most of these things, and I could use something like half of that full-time, and still be perfectly functional. I consider these "mild" earplugs similar to clothes, which I also wear most of the time even though they're not, strictly speaking, necessary. EDIT: I also wear glasses at all times when I'm out of the house. Not for vision -- I have excellent vision -- but plano lenses for protection. I started doing this after one day in college when a fucking tree branch nearly went in my eye as I walked down the street. I just didn't see it. I think I was looking sort of downward, and then looked up just in time to catch a spear in my eye. The only thing that saved my cornea was the fact that I was wearing sunglasses. I've had several other instances of random shit flying or poking at my face, but that was the closest I've come to a serious eye injury. Just normal fairly slender wire-framed glasses, with clear polycarbonate lenses that filter almost as much UV as sunglasses. Nothing fancy. Haven't had my eye poked out since, happy to say.
l33tbro 9y ago
Magnesium can help, but the PSA for the layperson should be about getting prednisone in the first 24 hours of an acoustic trauma. I almost want to write this in all caps because this will literally save your hearing. I was lucky enough to learn about this right after my left ear stopped working (don't get me started about Apple earbuds) and managed to recover 90 percent of my hearing due to convincing my doc to give me a 2 week steroid course. He hadn't even heard of this before, but thank God for white papers online. While I did use magnesium and vitamin E, they were supplementary to the prednisone which regrew the damaged cells. The tinninitus community is full of regretful people who wish they knew this.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  I didn't know that, yes, that makes perfect sense. I need to read about this some more. Comments like this make HN such a valuable resource for me.
DanBC 9y ago
> to the point that I now wear them most of the time. You're risking ear infection, which could cause permanent loss of hearing, tinnitus, or worse.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  No I'm not. I think the fact that I've done this for over three years without trouble is good evidence of that. Even if I paid no attention to hygiene, wax buildup doesn't put you at higher risk of ear infection in the absence of excess moisture, and these low-performance plugs I use don't seem to cause moisture buildup.

JohnJamesRambo 9y ago

This is one of the weirder things I’ve ever read here and I read a lot of strange behaviors here. You wear earplugs full time man, that’s not normal, you are missing out on unimpeded hearing due to a fear of hearing loss that likely is not based on science. Normal level sounds don’t degrade hearing as far as I know and loud sounds aren’t that common, certainly not enough to warrant wearing earplugs full time. https://www.american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hearing-loss/#intensity https://www.american-hearing.org/disorders/noise-induced-hea... You could expose yourself to 8 hours a day of a lawnmower at 90 dB and 90% of the population would be fine.

matte_black 9y ago
It’s not that strange. I wear earplugs (although they are low profile hidden ones) if I’m going to a loud venue, such as a really loud bar, or club, or a concert. It increases my enjoyment of these places and also makes it easier to have conversations with people.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  I do that, they cost about €20. Many people wear them at a metal concert, I'm a bit unusual in wearing them in an ordinary metal bar (or even a loud pub) too. If I'm taking a crowded metro train home, I might keep them in since I don't want to hear the drunk people. But I wouldn't wear them outside those times.
- dag11 9y ago
  Same, I keep discreet earplugs on my key chain and discreetly wear them in bars or similar unexpectedly loud places. Most people don't notice them even when they know I do this this. I'm a big fan of Earasers, which I bought for rock concerts, because they're generic musicians ear plugs (and therefore don't muffle people's voices), and they're practically unnoticeable. For actual rock concerts, I have molded musicians ear plugs which make the music sound just incredible, and I have no discomfort afterwards. I also highly recommend those.
- Exuma 9y ago
  Key phrase being... " if I’m going to a loud venue" The guy above wears them 24/7
  - nate_meurer 9y ago
    Well, I probably should have said, "nearly non-stop during waking hours". I leave them out at night. Also note that my "all-day" earplugs are these certain ones that have lost a lot of their effectiveness due to aging or something. I go through enough earplugs that I end up with a lot of these. I'm guessing I get about 10-15 dB out of them, and my ears/brain have adapted to this level of attenuation so well that my "plugged" hearing is functionally as good as other people's unimpeded hearing. For example, I listen to music and TV at the same levels as everyone else, and I'm not asking people to repeat themselves any more than anyone else. The habit of keeping them in at all times during waking hours just ensures they're in place when I need them, like when I drop a dish, or a sticky weight falls on a weight stack at 24-hour fitness, as in the top post in this thread. Shit like that happens all the time to me, and I got really sick of saying, "damn I should have had earplugs in." EDIT: Also, cut them in half. Much more usable for me, they're almost as effective, and hardly noticeable. Very rarely does someone notice that I have them in.

creep 9y ago

Why did you start wearing earplugs? I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community-- not that these fears are unfounded, but many of such types tend to obsess. Is this the case with you? What happened to you that impacted your life to this point?

sandov 9y ago
>I know in the online music community that developing tinnitus is a fear/paranoia akin to fear of surveillance in the tech community I wish I was in the online music community before getting tinnitus. My tinnitus doesn't bother me now, but it did make me unhappy for a couple of months
nate_meurer 9y ago
I have some tinnitus, but probably no more than the average person and it rarely bothers me. No, I just really like my hearing. I resolved to always wear earplugs out of the house one day after a particularly nasty bus with squealing brakes made my ears ring. I ride my bike a lot so that just made sense. At home, I was putting in ear plugs when putting away dishes, because I want to just get that shit done, pulling handfuls out of the dishwasher and stacking them hard and fast, like you do if you're not a priss. Except the sound was making me act pretty damn prissy. I cook a lot and I'm impatient, so that just made sense too. Some other things like that caused me to just keep plugs on hand all the time. But I realized I couldn't possibly predict all of the potentially damaging acoustic events in life. It also occurred to me that maybe the full 30+ dB earplug is overkill for most of these things, and I could use something like half of that full-time, and still be perfectly functional. I consider these "mild" earplugs similar to clothes, which I also wear most of the time even though they're not, strictly speaking, necessary. EDIT: I also wear glasses at all times when I'm out of the house. Not for vision -- I have excellent vision -- but plano lenses for protection. I started doing this after one day in college when a fucking tree branch nearly went in my eye as I walked down the street. I just didn't see it. I think I was looking sort of downward, and then looked up just in time to catch a spear in my eye. The only thing that saved my cornea was the fact that I was wearing sunglasses. I've had several other instances of random shit flying or poking at my face, but that was the closest I've come to a serious eye injury. Just normal fairly slender wire-framed glasses, with clear polycarbonate lenses that filter almost as much UV as sunglasses. Nothing fancy. Haven't had my eye poked out since, happy to say.

l33tbro 9y ago

Magnesium can help, but the PSA for the layperson should be about getting prednisone in the first 24 hours of an acoustic trauma. I almost want to write this in all caps because this will literally save your hearing. I was lucky enough to learn about this right after my left ear stopped working (don't get me started about Apple earbuds) and managed to recover 90 percent of my hearing due to convincing my doc to give me a 2 week steroid course. He hadn't even heard of this before, but thank God for white papers online. While I did use magnesium and vitamin E, they were supplementary to the prednisone which regrew the damaged cells. The tinninitus community is full of regretful people who wish they knew this.

nate_meurer 9y ago
I didn't know that, yes, that makes perfect sense. I need to read about this some more. Comments like this make HN such a valuable resource for me.

DanBC 9y ago

> to the point that I now wear them most of the time. You're risking ear infection, which could cause permanent loss of hearing, tinnitus, or worse.

nate_meurer 9y ago
No I'm not. I think the fact that I've done this for over three years without trouble is good evidence of that. Even if I paid no attention to hygiene, wax buildup doesn't put you at higher risk of ear infection in the absence of excess moisture, and these low-performance plugs I use don't seem to cause moisture buildup.