Moving Lawn with Double Hearing Protection — Tinnitus

Hi- this is my first post. I need some advice/ help. I experienced a firecracker go off about 70cm from my left ear (arms length) - it was the loudest thing id ever heard. I was shell shocked for a few minutes, and experienced tinnitus and what I believe to be hyperacusis in my left ear. This happened Dec 1st 2016. Now, it had gotten far better, in fact it went from being something i thought of every 30 minutes, to not thinking of it some days! However I mowed my lawn the other day, mowed and whipper snipped, all in one go. Took 2-3 hours. I wore double hearing protection. In ear plugs class 3 21db and premium earmuffs class 5 31db. Theres so many different answers floating around this forum but thought id ask anyway as this is bad. Right now my sons speaking voice is irritating (ha). I'm presuming theres going to be 2 main schools of thought here.

1. I may have overprotected. Lets say max 110db for the snipper, reduced by 31-50db (i believe doubling up on protection doesnt exactly double the db protection).

2. It was the vibrations rather than the noise.

To number 1 I say- if so, wouldnt my tinnitus have returned to baseline rather quickly? Its been a week!

I've mowed before and it seems when i break it up in half, do half one day, half another, it seems far better. I think that will be the fp to method moving forward.

Any advice, thoughts would be welcomed. Thankyou

 

You missed option 4 - All in your head.

How much hearing protection offers depends on so many factors. Both Earmuffs and earplugs are better at protecting against sounds of different Hz but both protect less with low frequencies. Then there is a question of whether you correctly wore the earplugs and earmuffs. Were the earplugs inserted so much that they aren't visible if you look at yourself in a mirror? Was there a gap in the earmuffs caused by wearing safety glasses? If you didn't wear the ear plugs correctly and had a gap due to the glasses then you had little protection. It can be as low as 5db for especially for low frequencies.

As far as bone conduction/vibrations I don't think it's an issue. Your body below the head provides roughly 80db+ protection. Also you weren't overprotected at all even if everything was worn correctly.

I don't think you were exposed to noise that caused physical damage to your ears so more than likely it's just a temporary flare up and it'll go back down eventually.

 

Just to avoid siuations like these, i bought this bad boy about a year ago. It's a great workout as well:

 

Yes me too !

I also pay people like that to do the noisy jobs, very handy

 

I would pay someone else to do works like this, but if you want to do it yourself, I would divide the work in several session, and would take frequent breaks to give my ears a rest. The combined use of earplugs and earmuffs or the extended use of earplugs or earmuffs alone (I mean, wearing them for like 2 hours) gives me pressure as well, which is bothersome.

Advice on a broader scale (not just limited to lawn mowing): if you survived the firecracker incident, do not keep trying your luck around loud noise if you can avoid it. Hyperacusis and tinnitus are not well understood today, but what we do know for a fact is that sometimes the go really bad in very short periods of time, or after brief exposures to noise, so it is not worth putting your ears at risk. There are going to be unexpected incidents, but I would not expose myself deliberately to a source of noise like a lawn mower, or any power tool; I would not use them.

 

Good info. I didnt know about the less protection at lower frequencies. They are pretty good ear muffs, when im not using a power tool i can hear the thud/ vibration of my footsteps (if thats an indicator..?). I'm hoping I just overdid the duration

 

I thought about one of these. Maybe i will think about it again

 

Very somber warning... thankyou, im worried now, i like power tools

 

You like your ears better, trust me !