How does hearing loss work?

[Fatstrat57]

I've started wearing earplugs at reall loud gigs where I'm working close to stage, after too many days after with partail deafness

 

but I started thinking of ambient noise during my regualr day. I someday hope to work in a production or engineering capacity, professions that require sensitive ears.

 

I noticed the crosstown bus I take is noisy as hell, a poorly kept diesel, and the vibrating bus frame that at times drowns out the voices of other passengers. I'm around it for half an hour

 

it's not painful, but wouldn't that deafen me slowly? or does it have to reach a certain decible threashold to do damage

[blackpig]

Noise-induced hearing loss can happen in two ways. A very loud noise like an explosion can rupture your eardrums. Eventually they will heal but there may be some scarring. The more common type occurs over a period of time - working in a noisy factory or playing on a rock band. This damages the delicate hair cells in the inner ear.

 

The way in which the ear works is that the eardrum vibrates against tiny bones which themselves transmit the information to the cochlea - the structure that looks a bit like a snail. The cochlea is hollow and filled with fluid. Vibrations set up in this fluid are detected by tiny hair cells that line the cochlear walls. These cells in turn transmit information directly to the auditory nerves.

 

Long-term exposure to excessive noise will overload and actually kill these delicate hair cells. Once gone, they can never grow back and the hearing loss is permanent. Wearing a hearing aid will be of little use; the hearing loss is frequency based and a hearing aid will only amplify signals that the ear can no longer process.

 

Wear ear plugs or join a chamber quartet.

[echoshock]

Yes its not only the loudness, but also how long you are exposed to the sound.

So yes that crosstown bus might not be painful, but being exposed to it for a half hour could be damaging.

i.e. I wear earplugs on the subway while others just turn up their Ipods louder.

[elsongs]

Huh?

[JMPRO]

Protect your hearing at all cost. Too many loud sounds and extended abuse has left me with a 60% hearing loss. I have the best hearing aids you can buy that are adjustable as to frequency, volume and compression. All that money and technology gets you the equalivant of hearing things through a dime store transistor radio. No hearing aid will ever give you back "Normal" hearing, all you will get is a mediocre facsimili of real hearing.

JMPRO