- In this video, I'm gonna teach you
how to use foam hearing protection
the right way, coming up.
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Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Anthem, Arizona.
And on this channel, I cover a bunch of
hearing related information to help make you
a better informed consumer.
So if you're into that,
consider hitting the subscribe button.
Now there are many different types of hearing protectors.
But the absolute best in the sheer amount of noise reduction
that they provide, are foam inserts.
The problem is that not everyone uses
the foam inserts properly.
You see, three quarts of those inserts
need to go down inside of your ear canal.
And if you don't get it into the right spot
no your ear to where you can just barely remove
it with your fingertips, then it's not gonna be
providing you the prescribed level of safety
that it says on the package.
The first foam hearing protector that
I'm gonna show you how to use is the
3M classic yellow earplug.
And what you want to do is take it,
and roll it between your fingers like this.
And get it down nice and skinny.
Once you get it skinny like this,
you're gonna take it and you're gonna pull your ear back
to straighten out your ear canal.
And work it down inside of your ear.
And once you get it really far inside your ear,
you're gonna hold your finger in place
until it expands entirely.
If you don't put your finger there,
it's gonna expand outside of your ear
instead of inside of your ear.
So as long as I hold my finger here,
it will continue to expand in the right direction.
And already I can tel that it is dropping
the sound of my voice incredibly low.
And there we go, this one is inserted properly.
You can see how deeply it is inside of my ear canal.
And when you look at me straight on,
you can't even tell that I'm wearing
a protector on this side.
Now I'm going to show you the way that you shouldn't do it.
You shouldn't just take the protector like this,
and stick it inside of your ear like that.
That right there provides zero protection.
None at all.
You might as well not even wear hearing protection
if you're going to put it in like that.
The other way you don't want to do it is
mash it like that and then think that that's
gonna go in and expand inside of your ear canal.
It won't.
Okay?
So roll it between your fingers like this.
Put it into a nice skinny cylinder,
pull your ear back and insert it,
and you should be able to just barely
pick it out with your fingernails.
And virtually that entire plug was down
inside of my ear canal.
The next foam hearing protector that I'm gonna show you
is the Howard Leight Foam Hearing Protector.
These are nice, they're a little bit softer
than the yellow ones from 3M,
but they still provide a really good amount
of protection for your hearing.
And you're going to do it basically the same way.
You're going to take it and roll it between your fingers,
just like that, nice and skinny.
Pull the ear back, insert it down inside the ear canal.
Hold your finger there, wait for it to expand.
Very simple.
And already, this one is expanding a little bit quicker
than the 3M hearing protector.
And again, what you don't want to do
is just take it like this and try to
work it down inside of your ear canal.
It is not going to provide you any protection, whatsoever.
So if you go to a concert, if you go shot at the range,
it is not gonna provide you with any hearing protection
and you're gonna end up with tinnitus and
you're going to end up with hearing loss
and then you're going to need to come see me.
Just using foam hearing protection in 99%
of your circumstances will provide you
with more than adequate protection to prevent
against noise induced hearing loss.
The one exception to that is that if you're
going to the gun range or you just like to shoot
and you're shooting really high caliber rifles,
you're gonna want to double protect your hearing.
Which means using foam inserts and then getting
a pair of earmuffs and putting earmuffs on top of that.
One of the common misconceptions that a lot of us have
is that the earmuffs are the most effective
hearing protection on the market.
They are not.
If they don't create a perfect seal around your ear,
they actually don't provide you the prescribed
amount of noise reduction that it has on the packaging.
There is absolutely no excuse for you
to not be protecting your hearing.
Whether you're going to a concert,
a sporting event, going to the gun range,
or just riding your lawn mower,
you should be using hearing protection
in all of those situations.
Nothing would make me happier than to never have
another patient with noise induced hearing loss
come into my clinic.
But if we're going to make that happen,
we have to start protecting our hearing
and protecting it the right way.
That's it for this video, if you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you like the video, go ahead and give it a thumb's up.
And if you want to see more videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit the subscribe button.
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