Glenn Cramond wrote:

Do you know the high pitched sound a radio makes when it's not quite
tuned to a station? The high pitched noise that, in its annoyance,
takes you directly to the source to twiddle the knobs?

Well here's the bad news. If you don't protect your ears, you'll have
that sound in your ears all the time, and with an auto control that
turns the volume up when you're stressed and when you're in a quiet
place, and at nights when you are trying to go to sleep.

The condition is called tinnitus. There is no cure. The good news,
it's preventable!

Please, you younger indestructable blokes, wear hearing protection,
and more importantly, particularly the older members, make sure you
have the right equipment to allow that little guy, who loves to help
grandpa, to safely work in your shop.

I used to think that eye damage would be terrible, "if I was blind I
could not check out the girls!" Having tinnitus is worse. A bit like
standing in a cesspool up to your chin and hoping no one makes waves.


Glenn's right. Protect your ears. I'm 44, my ears have rung steady since I was about 37. Probably partially due to damage done in High School and College (very loud bands), and to a lot of hammering in the last ~28 years some of which was done without plugs or muffs. Protect your ears.

I miss silence. I don't have tinnitus as bad as some, but it's depressing as hell if I dwell on it. Mostly I get to forget about it by being busy. For the most part, tinnitus is as permanent as an amputation. Protect your ears.

If I'm hammering, or grinding, I find that I can do a better job if I'm wearing ear protection... I can hear better what the grinder is doing and I can hit the metal harder with the hammer because it doesn't hurt me to do so. Protect your ears.

There's probably some health hazard to doing this, but I've never had a problem:
An excellent makeshift earplug is a square of toilet paper accordion-folded (not rolled) to about the size of a cigarette filter, placed gently in the ear canal, then soaked with (clean) water. Leave enough paper sticking out so you can get it out.

YMMV.
Your ears are not shaped like mine.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a lawyer.
Don't be stupid.

Protect your ears.

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your reply will bounce. See below.


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Carl West http://carl.west.home.comcast.net

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