We’ve been getting excited about summer fun all year: trips to the beach, chilling out by the swimming pool, and injured hearing? You could find yourself in environmental scenarios or subjected to other loud sounds this summer that are hidden hazards to your hearing. Any sounds over 80 decibels could hurt your hearing, while swimming in pools or other bodies of water can result in permanent hearing loss. To keep your ears safeguarded this summer, you need to be aware of your surroundings and take precautions. Here are six of the summer’s concealed hearing dangers.
At Concerts, Wear Ear Protection
The summer season is concert time, but even if attend a venue, you still need to protect your ears. Concerts can have volumes that are over 90 decibels, even at outside shows, which is within the danger zone of hearing loss. So whether you’re going to inside or outside shows, it’s a good plan to wear earplugs. You can still hear the music with earplugs it’s just dampened a little. If you’re bringing young children to a concert, consider buying them a heavy duty set of earmuffs since their ears are much more sensitive than those of adults.
Fireworks Can Damage Your Ears
Honestly, there are a lot of reasons to avoid fireworks in the summer. It’s not just the 4th of July shows that are pro that can injure your ears, we mean the backyard fireworks that bring about many of incidents during the summer. Home fireworks achieve volume levels of over 155 which can injure your ears on top of causing hand problems, loss of sight and home fires. This year, on the 4th of July, appreciate the fireworks from a little further away and leave the fireworks to the pro’s.
Loss of Hearing Can be Caused by Lawnmowers
If you’re really serious about your yard, it’s likely that you’re out there each week on your lawnmower, using your edger, and trimming your bushes. But the muffled feeling in your ears is a sign that your hearing has taken damage. That’s because the lawn tools, which are constantly loud, impact your hearing over time. You may have noticed lawn professionals using some type of hearing protection, you should take a hint from them and use earplugs or earmuffs next time you take care of your lawn to make sure your hearing stay healthy.
Here’s How to Safeguard Your Ears When You go Swimming
Huge numbers of people suffer from swimmer’s ear every summer, which occurs when bacteria-loaded water becomes stuck inside your ear canal. Swelling and painful earaches result when the ear gets infected by the bacteria. These bacteria are usually found in lakes and rivers but could also live in pools and hot tubs if the water isn’t thoroughly managed. No irreversible injury should happen if you have your hearing examined by a hearing expert. To protect against swimmer’s ear, though, you will want to wear special swimming earplugs in the pool and get your pool water analyzed to be sure the chemical balance is safe.
Boats and Other Water Sports
If you love the water, the summer season is beach and boating time for you. But, jet ski and boat engines can be noisy,they can get up to over 100 decibels. Sustained subjection to that kind of noise for about 15 minutes can bring about long-term hearing damage. In this situation also, putting on a pair of disposable foam earplugs is a smart strategy.
Car Races Can Injure Your Hearing
It doesn’t matter what kind of auto racing you love, stock cars, midgets, motorcycles, drag racing, Formula 1. Every one of them can present a huge issue for your hearing if you go to race after race this summer. 120 dB is inside of the danger zone for hearing impairment and many races go way above this. As pointed out earlier, your kids should use muffs whereas you should use earplugs at least. If you don’t, you might not be able to enjoy the sound of those engines in the future.