Health Action

Central Florida is full of sounds this time of year, including the Winter Park Bach Festival, the birds singing and the gators growling. Most of us can hear the magic of the music and some of us avoid exposure to the gator growls at night. Either way, hearing is a gift that needs to be protected.

Inside your ear, tiny hair cells are the nerve receptors of sounds. These hair cells send nerve impulses, through the aptly named acoustic nerve, to the brain. However, loud sound can destroy these sensitive, tiny hair cells. Once you lose about a third of the cells, your ability to hear can be affected. Excessive noise exposure is the leading cause of hearing loss.

Those rock concerts in your youth may have hurt your hearing cells. Noise-induced hearing loss is growing among baby boomers — the National Center for Health Statistics reports that one in five of the boomers (born between 1945 and 1964) have some degree of hearing loss.

The damage to your hearing can come from short bursts of extremely loud sound or constant exposure to moderate-level loud sounds. Very loud sound of 110 decibels or louder can cause permanent damage. The sounds of exploding firecrackers, firearms, jet engines, ambulance sirens and jackhammers are about 120-150 decibels. A rock concert can peak at 150 decibels.

Consistent loud noise such as a jet ski, motorcycle, iPod at maximum volume, or lawn mower deliver 90 to 100 decibels of sound and can cause damage when there is exposure of 15 minutes or more. Prolonged exposure of noise above 85 decibels can ultimately harm your hearing ability as well. Compare these sounds to a normal conversation, which is typically 60 decibels.

As we age, our hearing is likely to be less acute than in our younger years. One in three older than age 65, half older than 75, and 80 percent older than 85 have some hearing impairment. Age-related hearing loss may be due to noise exposure over the years, medications, and that perpetual culprit of so many health woes: smoking.

Protect your ears from loud sounds by taking steps such as avoiding loud places, wearing ear plugs when working with loud machinery, and keeping the iPod volume low enough that you can hear someone calling you or the street traffic.

Some warning signs of hearing loss are signs of difficulty hearing normal sounds, such as frequently asking people to repeat what they say, struggling to discern words on the telephone, and turning up the volume on the television.

If you think you have hearing loss, consider having a hearing evaluation by an ears-nose-throat (ENT) specialist or an audiologist. Sometime the problem can be as simple as wax in your ears (don’t insert anything smaller than your elbow into that fragile ear canal). A wide range of assistive devices is available to help with hearing.

Who is Lugo?

The Maitland resident is a nurse practitioner and President of Health Action, offering workplace health consulting and nurse coaching. Visit www.healthaction.biz