Jackhammer Sound Worry

Just a while ago I was in a sheltered carpark and I think there are some ground hacking work using those jackhammer. The carpark is not basement (not enclosed) but it is sheltered with opening at the perimeter (without walls but just beams). I am somewhere behind the a couple of walls from the works (no direct line of sight from the sound source) though I not sure where it is but I believe it is not very near based on the sound level. The sound level is not those that are very loud (not those that would instantly remind me that it is dangerous and to hide and cover my ears) but it is considered quite loud. I was there only for about 4 minutes.

Getting a bit paranoid. Very worried if it will worsen my T as recently my T have been improving.

 

Get some ear plugs and carry them on your keychain.

 

You said it yourself, it was loud but not dangerously loud, our ears can handle more than we give them credit for, I think you will be fine.

 

These sites contain charts for noise dB and our maximum exposure before some damage. Hope this will ease your mind since you are not right by the jackhammer and the dB should be way lower.

http://www.dangerousdecibels.org/education/information-center/decibel-exposure-time-guidelines/

http://www.gcaudio.com/resources/howtos/loudness.html

 

Any comments?

 

why does it matter what people think here? It's either worse or not, only you would know. You were there first hand, you tell us, wouldn't that make more sense?

 

you should look up a list of DB levels and how long you can be in them .. .4 minutes is nothing if it wasn`t loud ...

 

exactly.

 

you are taking about hearing damage. There is no chart which tells you how long you can be exposed to noise before you get tinnitus or a spike in existing tinnitus.

 

it`s the closest thing you can tell someone who is paranoid when actually nothing has happend so far ... why worry about a future spike caused by a past noise when now everything is fine??

 

its the worry that is the problem not the noise he was exposed to (which cant be reversed).

 

worry is imaginary! people worry is IMAGINARY!!!!

once you know a ghost is not real will you still be afraid??

so stop believing all your worries - it is IMAGINARY!

 

The consequences of noise exposure may appear a few weeks after the deed. There is no way to tell with audiograms.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/45/14077.abstract

Overexposure to intense sound can cause temporary or permanent hearing loss. Postexposure recovery of threshold sensitivity has been assumed to indicate reversal of damage to delicate mechano-sensory and neural structures of the inner ear and no persistent or delayed consequences for auditory function. Here, we show, using cochlear functional assays and confocal imaging of the inner ear in mouse, that acoustic overexposures causing moderate, but completely reversible, threshold elevation leave cochlear sensory cells intact, but cause acute loss of afferent nerve terminals and delayed degeneration of the cochlear nerve. Results suggest that noise-induced damage to the ear has progressive consequences that are considerably more widespread than are revealed by conventional threshold testing. This primary neurodegeneration should add to difficulties hearing in noisy environments, and could contribute to tinnitus, hyperacusis, and other perceptual anomalies commonly associated with inner ear damage.​

 

the odds of anything serious happening to you as a result of being 20' away from a jackhammer for 4 minutes are like a billion to one, and the big risk is, like, the carpark collapsing on you, not the hearing damage.

stop freaking out. freaking out is definitely neurotoxic. no BS.

 

@Thongjy, every week you have one piece of incredible anxiety or another. These events are not hurting you. The anxiety IS hurting you.

At some point in your life, something terrible will happen to you, you'll be in a car wreck or get struck by lightening or just run down the clock and get pancreatic cancer or alzheimer's or Martian Moon Base Disease. That's how it works! Illness and death are 100% assured by our current situation. You're healthy. You can go out and do things and walk around and pat puppies and have sex and eat chocolate and stare at sunny skies and green hills. Do it!