Is Skateboarding a Safe Sport to Pursue for Someone with Tinnitus?

I recently started skateboarding and am really considering pursuing it as a long term hobby?

Just wanted to know if it's considered safe for someone with tinnitus. The loudest it can get is doing tricks on a board and going to indoor skate parks where it can be as loud as 90 dB. I have been practicing on my younger siblings board and wearing high fidelity earplugs. I think it's been really taking the edge off and no spikes so far.

Just wanted to know if anyone on the forum has experience with skateboarding and its effect on your tinnitus, if any?

 

I don't know much at all tbh, but I think I would be way more worried about injury to my head than the loudness. You should probably wear a helmet.

 

I think you should wear ear protection and head protection and give it a go. Monitor your tinnitus to see if anything changes and play it by ear.

Back in the day, I remember they used to make rubber "soft" wheels which may also reduce the sound from the board further. Just be careful and wear protective equipment so you don't hurt other parts of your body, haha!

 

I skated for years and have hurt myself more times than I can count skateboarding. It's so damn fun tho that it's just one of those things that you have to throw all cares to the wind and just do it because it makes life worth living... Kinda like playing drums (which probably contributed to my current experience with tinnitus).

My two cents is that it will be most quiet if you're not grinding on rails, falling on wooden halfpipes, or skating on small hard wheels with cheap bearings. I suspect that wearing earplugs would make the vibrations from the board sound intolerably loud. Good luck, enjoy, and remember the woefully gender exclusive words of William Wallace:
"Every man dies, not every man really lives"

Cheers!

 

Yeah, that is a major concern for me as well. Thankfully, I am at the very beginner stages so I am learning how to cruise and not landing any tricks yet or doing ramps anytime soon. Once I start to learn tricks I will definitely invest in a helmet and other equipment. Thank you for you response!

 

Yeah, I have been learning how to cruise and have been wearing high fidelity plugs for every outing. Not going to lie, the third day I went out to skate I had a minor increase in tinnitus that night (that has subsided) but I think it was due more to city noise than actual skateboarding.

I will definitely continue to wear ear protection. I am a beginner so I'm currently learning to just cruise and get comfortable with my board. Once I feel comfortable enough to attempt tricks I will definitely invest in some protective gear. Also, do you skateboard?

 

Thank you so much! I want to pursue this seriously but really don't want to make things worse for myself in the process; my tinnitus has been improving a lot within the last few months so I don't want to regress. Yes, its a ton of fun! I have not learned any tricks yet and I've been wearing high fidelity plugs not foam ones to skate at a park near my home so I haven't had any uncomfortable experiences with the vibrations of the board. I'm currently using a sibling's board that has good quality bearings and wheels, been planning to buy mine from Zumiez or a local skate shop. I hope you're okay, did you ever suffer any head injuries? I have been watching tons of videos on how to fall properly so you avoid hitting your head.

 

It really is a balance between living life to the full, and risking a relapse.

For me personally, the risk would be too high but we all have different thresholds.

 

I was also thinking about that when I read the title.

Noisewise, I don't think it's risky. If indoor skate parks seem too loud you can always wear your plugs

 

Is Skateboarding a Safe Sport to Pursue?
Definitely not, it's an extremely dangerous sport that puts a ton of people in the ER every day.

Is Skateboarding a Safe Sport to Pursue for Someone with Tinnitus?
If indoor parks are 90 dB then you want earplugs.

Beyond that you're more likely to break your neck, or hurt your hearing through neck trauma of some kind, than other audio issues, probably.

I'm not going to lecture you, I go skiing through wooded diamond runs for giggles. However, doing this has resulted in a number of cervical spine injuries over the years, all of which have had at least a temporary negative effect on my tinnitus. I've been skiing since I was 7, not stopping now.

I also started riding motorcycles after I got tinnitus, so my risk calculus is different than some folks. For what it's worth I got my first bike 10 years ago and my tinnitus "seems" the same, and my hearing thresholds look the same on the slightly worthless tests I get.

I used to ride a skateboard when I was 18-22, and that's not something I'd personally pick back up, based on the physiological issues I have and the way I ride motorcycles, it would definitely be more dangerous than biking for me.

 

Luckily I never experienced any head injuries from boarding. I recommend practicing ukemi falls (from Judo) to smoothly break falls. I'm positive that learning ukemi has spared me head injuries. Surely you can YouTube "ukemi"

I hope your skating is harmless to you.

All the best!

 

I am an overly cautious person and I won't be doing anything to risk head or neck injury anytime soon or ever. I'm just learning how to cruise at the moment. I won't be kick flipping off a flight of stairs anytime soon, I doubt I want to get to that level anyways. Just mostly get down the basics and get some tricks down and hitting ramps, and once the time comes for it I will be wearing a helmet and other protective gear. It's only as dangerous as you make it.

 

Thank you and yeah I will make sure to invest in some great protective gear, currently just learning the basics. There are also ways to learn to fall to minimize or avoid any damage to the neck or head area, need to start learning that as well ahaha.

 

Thank you so much for your suggestion! I will definitely check it out. I hope it all goes well

 

What risk would be too high? Like skating or the injuries that comes with skating? Personally, I believe the greater the risk, the greater the potential injury when it comes to landing a trick. Once I start doing tricks I will definitely wear a helmet.

 

For me it would be the noise. Earplugs can create an occlusion effect with tricks and ground noise. I can't think of anything that would be worth it for me to make this hell any worse. Like I said though, we all have different limits.

 

In a vacuum, yes, and this is why I prefer to dirtbike alone up in the mountains around no cars.

In skateparks you have to worry about someone else not paying attention, and then on sidewalks and roads -- well, most skateboard fatalities are on roads, let's just leave it at that. A lot of people who get killed aren't trying to do a 1080 kickflip, they are trying to cross the street and they get hit by a bus, or they are trying to calmly ride an inside pipe and someone slams them at 60mph and you get a spine break. (The former is much more common than the latter).

Same thing happens with motorcycle rumble but I've never noticed any resulting problems after the plugs are out. The effect can be mitigated to a significant degree with properly inserted plugs.

The occlusion effect is real but bone conduction also attenuates something like 60 dB, so unless you're operating a jackhammer, you're good. 95 dB of skateboard or motorcycle noise, through properly inserted plugs, ain't gonna do anything except piss you off short term until you learn to ignore it.

People with hyperacusis might find this too unpleasant to pursue, but, that's a whole different can of worms.

 

If you’re outside, skating isn’t loud at all. The loudest will be a trick and that is only a second and depends on how hard you’re slamming onto your board. If you have low quality trunks/wheels then its going to sound bad. Also I think high fidelity earplugs may remedy the occlusion effect.

 

I skated throughout my whole childhood, having absolutely nothing to do with my current tinnitus and hyperacusis. We had a ridiculous amount of fun.

Just picturing it now, where I can't tolerate any sound, a skateboard sounds like one of the worst sounds. In particular, the worst sound would be the riding on roads.

Skateboarding is not that unsafe. I mean, if you want to be a daredevil, it is, but you can have quite a lot of fun just doing ground tricks or grinding on boxes. Maybe small sets or ramps.

I don't think there's a good answer to the question of whether it will worsen tinnitus. Completely depends on the person. I would be hesitant if it was making it worse though.

Just as a warning, data on this is going to be quite lacking. There's a correlation between age and skateboarding with the opposite correlation between age and tinnitus.

 

@starrynights

Completely unrelated to the question of whether skateboarding is for you or not, but you should watch Aaron "Jaws" Homoki on YouTube. It's absolutely insane what that guy can jump over and off of.

Also, Skyler Brown is a crazy talented young girl.

 

For being such a scrawny fella, Jaws must have a really strong skeleton. I wonder what his knees are like, from a medical standpoint, after all that abuse. Dude is over 30 now, maybe it's time to do more low impact skating.

 

Before hyperacusis, I skated and was heavily invested in the culture (making skate videos, wrote for a skateboarding blog etc). I had tinnitus before I started skating and it never bothered me there and then but in hindsight, I'm actually not sure if it was that smart. It's very possible that the noise exposure from rolling on rugged asphalt (especially when filming someone else doing a line), over time did lead to cumulative noise damage i.e. my already damaged ears becoming worse i.e. hyperacusis + worsened tinnitus. There was no obvious cause for my hyperacusis and worsened tinnitus in 2013 so it's one of many possibilities.

The only advice I can give you is to skate outdoor concrete parks if you're looking for the least noisy place to skate. Street skating on rugged spots can be quite noisy and indoor parks are freaking loud (luckily, I never skated much indoor parks at all during my days since there were none around here).

 

I won't comment further and derail the thread, but man, does that make me nostalgic. We used to love filming things (what skater doesn't?). I skated from maybe age 8 to 13, with off and on after that. It was literally all we did, especially in the summers. The feeling of landing a new trick is so satisfying. My brother built a box with "notched height" frames that stacked. I can probably still kickflip, though it would be horrifically torturous.

I think so much of skateboarding culture is if your friends do it. Everyone in our neighborhood did it (almost) so there was always someone to skate with. File that under good times that I will never reach again.

 

I've been a skater for 25 years, the only place to watch out for is indoor skateparks, I did some measurements and they easily go up to 90 dB.

I only wear earplugs in skateparks and tend to avoid them as much as possible and skate outside as much as possible. I never had any problems so go skating please, it's good for you and your health.

 

I skateboard! I haven't noticed any effect on my tinnitus, aside from the time I fell, hit my head, and may or may not have gotten a concussion. So, you know, wear a helmet or something.