Shelby Stockton spoke with audiologist, Dr. Ahmad Alexander about noise and hearing. Dr. Alexander discusses common noisy places that you may encounter more often than you think, and he suggests different ways to protect your hearing.
Shelby Stockton (00:01):
Welcome to the Texas ENT Audio Blog. I'm Shelby Stockton, and today I spoke with audiologist, Dr. Ahmad Alexander about noise and hearing. Today's episode focuses on how noisy environments affect our hearing and how we can protect ourselves. Dr. Alexander discusses common noisy places that you may encounter more often than you think, and he suggests different ways to protect your hearing. Hearing loss affects both young and mature Americans, so take some time to listen to Dr. Alexander's advice.
Hi, Dr. Alexander. How are you today?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (00:36):
I'm doing well. How are you, Ms. Shelby?
Shelby Stockton (00:38):
I'm great. Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. I have some questions for you about hearing and how we can protect ourselves. My first question is, how does a noisy environment affect our hearing?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (00:52):
Absolutely. Well, first, thank you for having me. I certainly appreciate that. In answering your question regarding how does a noisy environment affects our hearing, a noisy environment affects our hearing in a multitude of ways. Right? Oftentimes, we have to raise our voices for others to hear us. Also, excessive noise reduces our ability to hear others clearly.
Additionally, I would say that noisy environments may also impact our focus and our concentration because that background noise could be very distracting, but I would also say that it affects our ability to communicate, so communication is especially challenging when there is competing noise. When there's background noise, it makes it much more difficult for us to be able to communicate, and oftentimes I would say, well, we have to define noise. Right? What is noise and what is the first thing that we think about when we think about noise? Oftentimes, we think about an especially loud sound, we think about a sound that is disturbance, but I would also like to point out that noise could be speech and conversation, so to me, noise is any unwanted sound. So, any unwanted sound in our environment, that is noise and that can create a barrier to us being able to hear one another.
Shelby Stockton (02:21):
What are some common noisy environments that people deal with on a day-to-day basis?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (02:26):
Common noisy environments, I would say that there are some that are... Recreationally speaking, there are football games. Oftentimes, we may go to gun ranges and shoot firearms. Those are extremely loud. Even going to concerts and listening to music, those are extremely noisy environments as well. One particular area that some may not think about is even going to church, so being in a church environment can create a hazardous noise environment as well. Especially if you sing in a choir or you play a musical instrument, you're very close to those loud sounds, so that is a very common noisy environment as well. Also, if you're in the workforce, when we look at industrial buildings, we look at construction sites where there's heavy machinery, there's a lot of manufacturing or ventilation systems. Those are all common noisy environments.
But I would also like to point out and add that there are common hazardous noises as well that we may not necessarily think about, such as smoke detectors. When the battery dies in your smoke detector in your home, those alarms could be extremely loud, very loud, dangerous levels. Fire alarms, fireworks, even lawn mowers, when we go to mow our lawn, lawnmowers can be very hazardous to our hearing as well. Even something as simple as clapping our hands, especially if it's near the ear and the pathway of sound, clapping our hands could present hazardous noise levels to our hearing pathway as well.
Shelby Stockton (04:12):
How can we protect our hearing?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (04:14):
The obvious answer for protecting our hearing is personal protective equipment, wearing hearing protection. That is what we all think about when we think about protecting our hearing, and that is true. We should wear hearing protection, but also, other ways to protect our hearing is making sure that if we're listening to, for example, music, we want to make sure that we turn down the volume, that we're not listening to music at dangerously loud levels. We want to make sure that when we're exposing ourselves to hazardous noise levels, such as, as I just alluded mowing the lawn, that we wear hearing protection versus earbuds. Oftentimes, I've seen where individuals would be mowing lawn and they put in earbuds to listen to music to block out the background noise, but all that is doing is compounding the dangerous levels of the noise and creating more of an issue for our hearing. So, we want to make sure that we're protecting our hearing at all costs.
Again, if you're in a church environment or you're at a concert, you can even wear a musician earplugs. Those musician earplugs will allow you to hear certain frequencies, but it will still reduce the impact noise or the impulsive noises that are so detrimental to our hearing. Aside from the hearing protection and turning down the noise, there's also for those that are in the workforce that we talked about, personal protective equipment and hearing protection, but there are also engineering controls where we control the noise at its source. And then, if we cannot implement engineering controls, we look at administrative controls, simply taking a break from the noise, rotating in and out of those hazardous noise areas to give our ears a break from those hazardous noise levels.
Shelby Stockton (06:10):
Are custom molded earplugs or earmuffs a better option for people than over-the-counter hearing protection?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (06:17):
Okay. In answering this question, I always like to say that the best hearing protection is the hearing protection that the individual will wear and will wear correctly because what works for one person may not work for the next person. But if I had to answer, is custom molded earplugs better than over-the-counter earplugs, I would say yes because in order to wear custom mold earplugs, we as audiologists would have to take an impression of the ear. So, those hearing protection devices are custom fitted for our ears, so it's more comfortable. It's more of a comfortable fit. And when you have a comfortable fit, then you are more inclined to wear the hearing protection. Not only is it a more comfortable fit, but it's more durable, so it will last longer than over-the-counter earplugs. So, you're not having to purchase earplugs every day as you would with disposable over-the-counter earplugs. Also, custom molded earplugs, they may give you better sound quality in addition to better comfort, so yes, custom ear molds hearing protection are much better than over-the-counter earplugs.
Shelby Stockton (07:39):
What are the consequences of not protecting our hearing in loud environments?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (07:44):
Okay. There are multiple consequences for not protecting our ears in noisy environments. One is a sudden ringing in the ears, something that we refer to as tinnitus. You may hear some individuals pronounce it as tinnitus. It's the same thing. The tinnitus, if we expose ourselves to dangerous noise levels, then immediately, we would oftentimes notice that ring in our ears. It may be a ringing. It may sound like a buzzing. It may sound like a hissing or a constant dial tone. So, that's one of the immediate consequences of not protecting our hearing in hazardous noises or in loud environments. Also, there may be a sudden decrease in our hearing acuity and our hearing sensitivity, whereas we start to feel as though we're hearing ourselves in a tunnel or in a barrel, and that's because of some of the damage that is being done to the hair cells within our inner ear or within our cochlea, part of the anatomy of the ear and hearing. So, two things that come to mind immediately are the tinnitus, which is the ringing in the ears, and also a sudden decline or a sudden decrease in hearing.
But if I may add, I would also like to mention something that we oftentimes not think about, especially if you're in a relationship, is a sudden reduction in a degree of intimacy in a relationship because when we experience hearing loss due to not protecting our hearing, we begin to isolate ourselves. We begin to have less of effective communication with our spouses or with our children or with our parents or with someone in our family or it may be a friend, but we tend to have more difficulty communicating with others. So, we tend to go into isolation in a sense, so that reduces the intimacy of those relationships that we have because we tend to struggle hearing others. So, if we're having a conversation with someone, we may yell at them to stop yelling at us because they're yelling, thinking that, well, we can't hear them because we have hearing loss due to the hazardous noise levels. So, the person with hearing loss may say, "Well, stop yelling at me. I can hear you. I just cannot understand what you're saying to me." There's the inability to perceive speech in a sense, so you may still be able to hear sounds, but your ability to understand speech may begin to diminish.
Shelby Stockton (10:39):
Wow, it can be so complicated, can it? Patience is a virtue.
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (10:43):
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Shelby Stockton (10:46):
One more question, please. What are the signs of hearing damage and how do we recognize them?
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (10:51):
For the individual with hearing loss or hearing damage may not notice it immediately. Usually, it's the family member that will notice that another person has hearing loss first because that hearing loss for the most part tends to be a gradual progressive process. So, oftentimes, it's not the individual that is experiencing the hearing damage or the hearing loss that will notice it first. Typically, it's a family member that will notice the hearing damage first and another family member. Again, oftentimes, you won't experience things like bleeding in the ear or ear pain because it is a gradual process, unless you do experience sudden damage to the ear. But some of the more noticeable signs of hearing may include tinnitus, as I touched on a little bit earlier, or ringing in the ears.
Other signs may include difficulty hearing in the presence of background noise. There's difficulty understanding speech. And then, oftentimes, we might find ourselves becoming more dependent upon lipreading. So, we're focusing and we're zooming in on a person when they're speaking to us, and oftentimes, people may think that we're staring at them, but we're so focused and we're concentrating on their lips because we're dependent upon those cues that they're giving us when they're speaking. So, having a dependency on lipreading, experiencing difficulty and understanding speech, difficulty hearing in the presence of background noise, all of those are signs of hearing damage.
Usually, I will say that early complaints involve a perception that others are not speaking clearly, so we tend to think that, "Well, you're mumbling. You need to speak up when you're talking to me. Why are you mumbling?" And that's an immediate sign that we're beginning to experience hearing damage. So, again, I would say, one of the more focal points and one of the most important pieces here is difficulty hearing and understanding others.
Shelby Stockton (13:04):
You really hit the nail on the head with the mumbling, I'm going to have to send this to my mother because she says, "You're mumbling." I'm like, "I've been called many things, but a mumbler is not one of them."
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (13:17):
Yeah. Yes.
Shelby Stockton (13:18):
Dr. Alexander, thank you so much. I really appreciate this. You've given us a lot to think about. And everybody, go get your ears tested.
Dr. Ahmad Alexander (13:28):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. Thank you again for having me. I hope that I've answered all of your questions. It has been a pleasure speaking with you.
Shelby Stockton (13:36):
You as well.
