Turn it down! Tips to protect hearing of ‘earbud generation’

It's getting closer to the end of December, and everyone is stocking up on paputok, ready to both close the old year and welcome the new one with a bang.

In light of this, it would be a good idea to stock up on earplugs as well,  as the booms and zings of fireworks can cause permanent hearing loss.

Hearing loss is often not congenital or caused by infections, but happen as a result of damage to the ear caused by sustained exposure to noise, the doctors said.

“We know we get hearing problems because of exposure to noise, and we certainly can do something about it,” said Metro Manila Federation of Agencies for the Deaf president Dr. Norberto Martinez. He said this at a media event for Deaf Awareness Week, which is held every November to teach the public how to take better care of their ears—and the ears of their children.

Noise-induced hearing loss is a cumulative process, said St. Luke's Medical Center pediatric otorhinolaryngologist Dr. Gretchen Navarro Locsin. “You get bombarded kung nagtatrabaho ka sa construction at wala kang adequate protection,” she said as an example.

Protection for workers is part of occupational safety and health laws, she added, but it's often not followed because of the added cost. The common recommendation is exposure to at most 85 decibels that should be not more than eight hours a day, five times a week.

“Scientific studies have shown that people exposed to noise levels of 85 decibels and above over eight hours or longer will gradually lose their hearing over time. If you have to shout to be heard by another person three feet from you, the noise level is probably above 85 decibels,” said the Washington Department of Labor and Industries.

According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the noise from heavy city traffic is around 85 decibels.

Common noise sources that are louder are:

• Motorcyles: 95 decibels
• An MP3 player at maximum volume: 105 decibels
• Sirens: 120 decibels
• Firecrackers and firearms: 150 decibels

Protecting yourself from these all-too-common noise sources can be as easy as stepping away from the speakers or investing in earplugs. Be responsible for your own hearing, said the doctors: You are the one who will regret the loss and the expense later on.

Protect your hearing at any age

You’ll be doing both yourself, your children, and society in general a favor by protecting the hearing of one and all in following these simple methods.

Do not feed babies lying down. Breastfeeding and bottle-feeding should be done with the baby's head elevated, to reduce the risk of milk and other liquids entering the middle ear through the Eustachian tube.

Breastfeed babies. Doctors advocate breastfeeding newborns for at least six months, for a couple of reasons. One is that mothers tend to breastfeed their babies more at an angle. “Breastfed or bottle-fed, sana nakataas, hindi 'yung pinapadodo nang pahiga para hindi pumupunta ang infection sa tenga,” said Locsin.

In addition, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) paper “Breastfeeding: Foundation for a Healthy Future” (1999), children who are breastfed are less susceptible to infections that can damage their hearing, among other benefits.

No smoking. Exposure to cigarette smoke is associated with the greater risk of ear infection, said Locsin. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also advises parents not to expose children to secondhand smoke to prevent ear infections.

Use earplugs in noisy places. If loud noise is common in your work environment, or if you are going to an event where loud noises are going to be inevitable, such as a concert, invest in a pair of earplugs. Do not used rolled-up tissue.

Take out the earbuds. “Do you know what they call this generation of young people?” Locsin asked the media during the Deaf Awareness Week event. “They're called the 'earbud generation.'” To young people who never seem to take out the earbuds from their ears, the doctors advise taking breaks from the music to rest their ears.

Turn down the volume. How do you know you've got the volume on too loud? Locsin enumerated the signs:

• If you have to shout to hear yourself
• When you can't hear your friends talking to you
• If people can hear what you're listening to
• If you have a sense of “fullness” in the ears (the feeling when you get water in the ear while swimming, or when you're congested with a cold or allergy, or have a lot of wax buildup)
• And if there is ringing in the ears, she said, “meron ka nang damage.”

Do not clean your ears. This may come as a surprise to most people, but it's not a good idea to dig around in your ear with cotton swabs. It's all right to clean the exterior of the ear, said Dr. Locsin, but it is not advisable to push a cotton bud deeper into the ear canal to clean it. For one thing, it can push the earwax deeper into the ear, impacting it. There's also a risk of damaging your eardrum when you poke at it with a swab.

“Technically you shouldn't clean your ears. In fact, for children, the only time we want to clean their ears is if you cannot see the eardrum for us to diagnose an infection. That's the only reason. The ear has its own self-cleaning mechanism,” she told GMA News Online.

There's also a reason for the presence of earwax: It traps impurities that enter the auditory canal, and generally the ear gets rid of earwax by the natural movement of the head without us even noticing it.

But if you must clean your ears... 

If you need to remove excess or impacted earwax from your ears, Better Hearing Philippines provides some very basic and elementary visual guides to proper ear care.

The Mayo Clinic in the US recommends using an eye dropper to apply a few drops of baby oil, mineral oil, or hydrogen peroxide into your ear canal.

According to the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide, keep your head tilted so that the liquid can get into the ear, then after a few minutes tilt your head the other way to let the ear drain. You can also use a bulb syringe to gently ease the wax out. — VC/KG, GMA News

You can have your hearing checked for free at the UST Center for Audiological Sciences, Room 413, Medicine Bldg., University of Santo Tomas, España, Manila. Prior appointment is required. Make an appointment by calling (02) 406-1611 local 8230 or 0917-5010987 or email the center at betterhearing@hotmail.com.