hearing loss

[Instigator]

When I was in my early 20's I had a job repairing air tools for Snap On.

When I started there we had no hearing protection.

There were 6 of us at work benches just far enough apart to be able to walk between them.
The guys would free run their repairs at their benchs. That included 1/2" impacts, die grinders, DA's etc.

The walls were metal and concrete block.
A perfect echo chamber.

We had a separate room for testing the tools.
It was approx 10' x 15' and all block.

We tested up to 1" impacts on torque testers that let the hammer mechanisms spin a bolt into the tester.
It was deafening n that room, even w/muffs on!

When I started there, the guys would leave the door open to the test room, while they were testing their repairs.
That door was about 10' from my bench.

I got management to buy us hearing protection.
The old timers did not wear it.

I studied hearing protection (db levels etc) and a test they suggested for that environment was to sit in your car before going in to work in the morning and set your radio to where you could just barely hear it.
At end of day, get in your car and see if you could hear the radio.

None of us could.

There was a dividing wall w/doors between our dept and the electronics and torque wrench repair areas.
When I started there they left those double doors open during the day.

I worked there 5 yrs.

Add to that the loud motors and everything else listed above.

I feel for the guys that came through life before me in those environments when that was no safety.

[CUDA]

WHAT!

My wife tells me to go to Costco, so I get checked and the guy tells me my hearing is not that bad, he said if he was still working for a former hearing aid company he would sell me a pair, (must have been a commission job) says I can hear ... but not right, what does that mean I'm retarded? Don't answer.

If I'm watching TV and cup my hand next to my ear, much better, Wife tells me to get a set anyhow I have a problem with distinguishing what was said, high-frequency hearing loss?

[W2F a V-King]

Doesn't sound (no pun) like the guy did you right. Go to a real Audiologist or ENT and have your hearing evaluated.

Hearing your wife is one thing , but having to cup your ear and trouble hearing a conversation in a restaurant or store is a sign you need to be tested by a professional.

Yes, you can loose certain frequencies....Not necessarily the whole range.

[BOATMANBLUES]

high frequency loss is the more common type....that's where the consonant sounds are at ...so you start not being able to tell "s" from "f" type sounds..
this makes speech hard to understand even if the volume is loud enough...an audiologist checks decibel loss through the frequencies and does speech discrimination tests...the longer you go without hearing speech well , the more the brain forgets how to process it....so, with hearing aids they boost the decibels you have lost back up, but that still doesn't mean you will be able to understand speech well...

[home made tunnel]

. . . What !?

[home made tunnel]

Heh heh heh. I had to be that guy.

My father was deaf in 1 hear when he married my mother. Why? years of giant tower speakers that shook the pictures off the shelves, and 2-strok lawn-boy mowers while he made money around the neighborhood. Chain saws too.
He never knew what hearing protection was.
I grew up in a house of yelling. SO I always wear ear plugs / ear muffs/ all that PPE.