DJ Hardy

Are you a person who is exposed to loud music or loud noise? If you are, this may be of interest to you.

I’ve averaged anywhere from 100-170 shows per year since I started DJing professionally. At each show, I’m exposed to loud music for three to five hours. Even if you are not a working DJ or musician, you are subjected to damaging loud noise in day-to-day life. Simple tasks such as vacuuming your house, trimming your lawn or operating a laundry washer/dryer are traumatic enough to cause hearing damage.

There are two main types of non-genetic hearing loss – conductive and sensorineural – that can occur in individuals. In most cases, it is not reversible. There are exceptions to this rule, especially if there are timely measure taken by an Otolaryngologist. But just like many other health issues, prevention is more effective than any treatment when it comes to hearing loss amongst adults.

I recently had an audiogram done by a professional audiologist at the University of Michigan Audiology department. It’s usually a pain-free and short appointment where your hearing is tested in a sound-proof booth at various frequencies. Many places will also include a word-recognition test to along with a regular hearing test that includes various frequencies. I was fortunate that even after all this exposure, my hearing is relatively intact. Here is a snapshot of my results, so you can see what your results should look like:

The next step for me was to ensure that I don’t allow my ears to suffer any more damage. So I chose to purchase a pair of custom-fit musician ear plugs. These ear plugs use different frequencies (-9, -15, -21 and -25 db are some of the options available) to restrict the amount of sound that reaches your ears. They are made from an impression/mold of your ear, which is usually taken by an audiologist. A pair of these plugs will typically cost you about $150, but that price may vary depending on the type of products you choose. And the visit to audiologist may or may not be included as a part of the cost, depending on the clinic where you purchase these plugs.

Here is a picture of the impression (in my ear!), the ear-plug itself, and the filters you attach to the plugs:

I’d like to note that you can have a pretty normal conversation with people even with these plugs in your ears. I used a pair for about a year and half until I somehow managed to lose one of the plugs last April. They feel really comfortable since they are designed to fit the exact shape of your ear.

I hope that this information was helpful to you guys. If you have any questions, feel free to post in the comments or contact me directly.

Have a great weekend!

-Hardy

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 6:59 AM and is filed under Informational. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.