- Hi guys, Dr. Cliff Olson from Applied Hearing Solutions
and in this video I share a story about
why it's so important to wear hearing protection, coming up.
(rock music)
I saw a patient yesterday, and it just kinda brought back
some of my own personal experiences
that I've had with my hearing loss;
and I wanted to share a little bit about that
'cause it's not something that I talk about in detail.
And it all kind of started when I went into the military.
So, I went into the military around 2002.
I actually went through my screenings
at the end of 2001 in order to get in,
and I got in no problem with my medical screenings
and my hearing screening but when
I was in boot camp, they actually found
the hearing loss in my right ear.
And it was something that I thought that
I was going to be kicked out of the military for.
They said that they were gonna apply for a waiver,
so I got to stay in; and when I ended up getting out
four years later, it turns out
that they never even applied for a waiver.
So, here I am, someone who had hearing loss, essentially,
throughout most of my time in the military and I,
the military is something that definitely
just changed me and really set the course
for the rest of my life and my career.
So, this patient that I had yesterday
came in, young kid, and was going through
these medical screenings before getting into the Army.
And he came in, he came in with his mother
and they showed me these test results that he had.
And what I saw in these test results
remind me a lot about my hearing.
I have a dip in my hearing at around 3,000 to 4,000 hertz
and, you know, it's something that is,
and it was just in the right ear, and it was something
that is not necessarily that you would normally see.
And I saw the same type of hearing loss in him
and, you know, they were looking for some kind of
medical reason or, you know, why did this happen,
is it something we can correct?
And what it turns out is that it looked to me
like a noise notch: and what that is a drop in your hearing.
And it can happen in both ears but certain circumstances
it can happen in only one of your ears
and usually see a threshold drop or a decline
in your hearing around 3,000 to 4,000 hertz.
And when I see a hearing loss like that it usually
indicates, okay, this was caused by noise exposure.
After doing a little bit more digging around and finding out
okay, so what areas have you been exposed to,
you know, was there, were you exposed to
firecrackers, gunshots, you know,
loud music, things like that?
And it turns out that about four months before
he went in for his screenings, he went out to the desert.
We're out here in Arizona,
went out to the desert and did some target practice,
and they realized that they forgot
to bring their hearing protection.
And ever since that point, he's
been having ringing and buzzing in his right ear,
which is the ear that has the hearing loss.
And we know that usually when there's a decline in hearing,
90% of those individuals will get this form of tinnitus
or ringing or buzzing in their ears.
And what likely happened is that one case
of shooting guns unprotected caused the hearing loss
in his right ear to the point where it eliminated him
from being able to go into the military.
And this crushes me, right, because
I know that the military shaped my life so much
and the reason I'm doing what I'm doing today in audiology
is because of the experience that I had in the military.
And so, you know, it kills me to be the one
to have to say that this is the thing
that is going to keep you out of the military:
but, you know, all of it could have been prevented.
All it takes is just protecting your hearing.
And one thing I don't think a lot of people realize is that
it only takes one gunshot, one unprotected gunshot,
for you to sustain a significant hearing loss.
And on top of that, the tinnitus that comes along with it
is a whole 'nother level of issues,
from an emotional standpoint having to listen
to this ringing and buzzing sound
for basically, the rest of your life.
Now, there are treatments that you can do for that
and I've made a video about that
but at the same time, if you can prevent it altogether,
why wouldn't you want to do that?
I don't know what the stigma is
against wearing hearing protection.
You know, whether it's the little foam hearing protectors,
whether it's the ones that are
specifically made for shooting,
so you can have conversations with people
and as soon as you fire a gun it attenuates the sound
and brings the sound level down.
But there are very simple things that
you can do to protect your hearing when you're going
into these noisy environments and it's not just
shooting guns, you know: it's going to concerts.
They have hearing protectors that lower the level of sound
but still keep it sounding natural
to you, just at a lower volume level.
You know, you can go to one concert and sustain hearing loss
if you're in there and close enough to the sound source
or speaker, you know, or the band on stage.
And there's a lot of these smaller,
it doesn't even take big concerts:
you can go to a bar and they have a band set up
in this small space, and when you have that you have
a lot of sound in a small area that can cause hearing loss.
The reason that I talk about this is
because hearing loss is something
that I see on an everyday basis,
and a lot of the time, this hearing loss
is caused from noise exposure.
And not just working in a factory but recreational
sources of noise and all of these.
And here's the thing: not a lot
of hearing losses can be prevented.
Noise-induced hearing loss can be prevented,
and it is as simple as wearing a small little earplug.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them
in the comments section below,
and I'll see you next time.
(techno music)