Listen to Your Ears

Some scientists say that our ears were made for a primitive world in which the loudest sound might be a twig snapping underfoot, so just the normal cacophony of the twentieth century may be something of a challenge to our ears.

But add an extra 105 decibels--the pounding music in an aerobics class or from a portable tape player--and you have a good chance of having a significant hearing loss, says Edwin Monsell, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Division of Otology and Neurotology in the Department of Otolaryngology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. And if you are in an aerobics class, keep in mind that at least one researcher suspects that the physical impact of aerobics on your inner ear may also cause hearing loss.

If you've ever walked off a plane or out of a concert and felt a ringing in your ears as though your hearing were muffled, you've probably experienced a temporary threshold shift. The threshold is the quietest sound you can hear; when it shifts, it means that you've lost some of your ability to hear.  The loss is probably temporary. But it may become permanent if you repeatedly expose your ears to noise levels that cause the shifts, doctors warn. That's why you should take your ears' hint and avoid any type of noise that causes this effect, doctors agree. Or at the very least, make sure you're wearing ear protectors the next time you're exposed.

Aerobics "regulars," because of their repeated exposure, are most likely to have hearing that's already been damaged.  Yet they may be totally unaware of it, because hearing loss accumulates slowly and doesn't hurt when it happens. Even a single exposure to loud noise can cause some permanent hearing loss.  But it's more likely to cause a temporary loss.  Your ears may ring or things may sound muffled for up to a day or two until your ears recover.  But repeated episodes of temporary loss can gradually lead to permanent loss as the ears loose their ability to recover fully.