Lawn Mowers & String Trimmers

I mowed the grass for the first time this year, and I wore ear muffs rated at 25db of noise reduction, but after I had mowed about half the yard I could hear an increase in my tinnitus levels. The mower itself is fairly quite for a 4 cycle engine, and the vibrations coming up the handle didn't seem too bad. I am not sure what course of action to take, except maybe buy a 2 cycle Lawn Boy? Do they still make those in America?

For what it's worth, I also edged the yard with a new Echo GT-225 gas trimmer. I have used this tool before a few times, but I don't recall it causing an increase in tinnitus. The GT-225 does not vibrate that bad.

Edit: It has been 24 hours since I mowed the lawn / trimmed the edges, and my tinnitus is still a bit louder than usual. It is hard to fathom how these tools could cause so much issues.

 

I had the same issue the first time I mowed. I mowed for about an hour on a riding lawn mower and it made my T increase for a couple of days. Since then I have hired the teenage son of a friend of mine to mow twice for me. I want to wait a couple of weeks before I try again. I believe it has to do with vibration more than noise because I wore earplugs and earmuffs when I mowed and it still raised my T.

 

I mow the lawn with a cheap pair of ear muffs that I have - I don't really notice any increase usually but if I do it subsides pretty quickly, I basically mow my lawn every 2 weeks. Don't be worried about a permanent increase, any increase you experience will either be because your anxiety is heightened or because your ears have simply decided to protect itself but blocking out more sound (eg. like if you were in a club for a bit) thus leading to an increased perception of your T, however your ears will eventually return to baseline.

-25db ear muffs are more than enough for a lawn mower btw, I use -25db custom ear plugs when I go out to clubs (on average up to about 4-6 hours of VERY loud music) and always end up fine - again, at the worst I'll notice an increase for 2 days but then it returns to normal. Hope you feel better soon!

 

I use my ear protectors, kind of like shooting headphones for noise blockage when using the the leaf blower and sucker, also trimmer. I think that's a very smart thing to do, wear ear protection.
I still use a push mover. One neighbor that walks by, thinks I live in the stone age, old fashion I guess.
Hope you get better JM.

 

Or get one of those lawn mower robots and let that do the job for you
Unless mowing the lawn is like a hobby for you

 

If you like exercise you could try a reel mower. No noise or vibrations just a lot of sweat and hard work. Exercise is supposed to help your ears and you would be killing two birds with stone.

 

For what it's worth, I emailed Dr. Neil Bauman of The Center for Hearing Loss in Pennsylvania, and this is what he said...


LOUD lawnmowers can damage our ears--resulting in hearing loss and tinnitus.

However, your lawnmower is not loud--lets say about 90 dB. so it shouldn't be causing your tinnitus to get louder--even without the earmuffs.

With the earmuffs, you'd only be hearing it at 65 dB and other sounds would be correspondingly less. What I suspect happened is that your ears were being deprived of sounds so they turned up the internal volume and that made your tinnitus a bit louder.

You can get tinnitus from being in a soundproof room and not making any noise for an hour. Your brain doesn't like being deprived of sounds and turns the internal volume up trying to hear something and you again hear some tinnitus. It typically goes away shortly after you begin hearing normally again.

Was that your experience with the lawnmower and your increased tinnitus? This is why you mustn't overprotect your ears from sounds--just from ear-damaging levels of sounds.


Regards

Neil



--
Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
Center for Hearing Loss Help
49 Piston Court
Stewartstown, PA 17363 USA
Phone: 717-993-8555
FAX: 717-993-6661
Email: neil@hearinglosshelp.com
Website: http://www.hearinglosshelp.com

 

I have considered that...along with the thought of using an electric model. Do the electric models vibrate much?

 

Well. I actually never looked at it that way.
I must say that I try to keep away from any noise whatsoever. For example: I used to have the radio on as a background noise while working, but I don't do that anymore ever since I had my Tinnitus 2.0
I think I can say that my tinnitus gradually got 'worse'*, and I know start to realise that maybe I should have kept a fair amount of sound around me and don't be so phonophobic about it.


* the perception got worse, not the level or the noise itself, I believe.

 

I would assume that they would not vibrate as bad. I think most of the vibration is probably because of the gas motor on mowers.

 

That part actually doesn't make sense to me: your ears weren't deprived of sound, as they were still hit with 65 dB.
Damn, dr. Bauman will have to come with a better answer next time, I guess…

 

JM,
I thought the doctor’s statement was interesting. That the brain can turn up or down the volume of tinnitus. And he recommends not overprotecting the ears from sound. Thank you for that perspective.

Goofy,
Go ahead have a Dr. Pepper. The sooner we get back to our normal lives, maybe we'll feel better. I have to admit I kind of cut the caffeine. The Root Beer I had was good, lots of sugar in drinks. And that glass of wine was good too. Peace

 

I might do that this week.

 

Have a dr pepper. It won't hurt you. It will make you feel better. And yes, it will help normalize things if even just a little. Getting back to the little things you used to do before T, makes a big difference in the end.....and there is a professor at my University named Dr. Pepper.....no joke...hahah

 

What N Bauman said I believe is absolutely correct. Overprotecting your ears can make you T seem worse and using ear plugs when you don't need to, too much, will make your brain increase your hearing gain and the T. I know that in the early stages I was doing just that and it didn't help me at all with the fear and anxiety. Now lawn mowing is loud and can hit 85db+ so hearing protection should probably be used if you are mowing more than 15 minutes.

 

I am going to try adding things I did before T. Just have to take it one step at a time to see what my limit is.

That is funny.

 

Ok just finnished my back yard with a mower, don't know what the dbs were, but it had to be done...I'm siding with the Doc on this one...Don't overprotect your ears, but be careful about head banging music from the 3rd row of a Metallica concert, that would do it...Day by day returning to doing regular stuff, always apprehension about my T spiking but I've got to find out what works and what doesn't and TLOR is right it's all about the perception of the sound and the fear that it tries to impose on your brain .......I've actually had 2 AWESOME weeks with only a few spkies involved so I feel for myself I have to get back to reality and life. Not really sure if the brain can turn up the volume on Tinnitus, or wether its the nervous system acting in conjunction with the brain.

 

Nice to hear a professional with a simple explaination that I can agree with. The doc has explained the cause of tinnitus in a nutshell. Most of us with tinnitus (about 95%) get it from hearing loss at a frequency. When the brain no longer gets the volume for a particular frequency from the ear, all that it can hear is the "gain control" .

There are some mowers that are pretty loud. The absolute loudest thing I can imagine are those tree-chipper/grinders. I bet a lot of these guys who trim trees get tinnitus, although I've never asked any of them.

 

I've unquestionably experienced the effect of increased T from sound deprivation. I too wear hearing protection while mowing the lawn with my power push mower. The first time I cut the grass this year I wore some really good ear muffs - I think maybe too good. I could barely hear the mower with them on, but I sure could hear my T. I was annoyed by the T all while cutting the grass, and for the next 2 days my T volume was awful. In addition, I experienced a lot of hypercusis over the ensuing days. The next time I wore ear plugs that did not choke off the sound as much as the muffs. I couldn't hear the ringing while mowing, but I had a little elevation in my T volume afterwards, but not nearly as bad as when I wore the muffs. There must be a happy medium there somewhere. I guess I'll have to play around with different ear protection means until I find it.

 

That's a good way of putting it. I never thought of it that way before.

 

We talked to one of them recently, and he could not hear our conversation too well because of being around loud equipment all day.

 

This is what I believe caused my tinnitus in April last year. Three weeks of sleeping in absolute total silence in a sleepy village in Cornwall - inside a bedroom with 18 inch thick walls. I believe that my ears 'turned up the volume of my brain' as I wasn't exposed to any loud noise etc. I'd previously been living on a noisy road.

It didn't go away though! I still expect it to... eventually... and I also think it's why my T is not continuous. It goes away and it comes back. It goes right down and it goes right up.

 

Jane -
There was a classic experiment done in 1953 (Heller and Bergman) where 80 people were placed one-by-one in an absolutely sound-proofed room. Within five minutes, 94% of these people heard sounds identical to those described by tinnitus sufferers. So anyone can get tinnitus if things are too quiet!

However, the other 5% of tinnitus sufferers get it from causes other than hearing loss. I talked to a tinnitus researcher, and he said that for some people they get tinnitus from nerves in the brain stem. He said that somatic (sensory) information that is carried by nerves meet in the dorsal cochlear nucleus, in the brain stem, where also auditory nerves meet. Sometimes the information from somatic nerves gets mixed-up with auditory nerve information, causing internal sounds. He said that also facial nerves can sometimes cause tinnitus.

 

Hi Karl

Yes, I read the same things and it makes sense... amazing that something does

I agree with the researcher you spoke to - mine feels like mixed up nerves too... or maybe that's just me feeling mixed up - tinnitus has mixed meeee up!

Hope you're ok

Jane

 

@James I had that Dr.Pepper today and it was so good. T seems about the same today. I am ready to try more things now.

 

Hey Goofy, that made me smile........I'm glad for ya. I got to try things I like too; but so far no coffee for me.
I mean we got to live a little, ya know. Glad I caught that remark.

 

I even used my gas power washer yesterday (with earplugs) and it didn't bother me. I am going for the weedeater next week I think. I agree that we need back to living out lives.

 

I ran the gas powered string trimmer today, but I did not use the 25db noise reduction ear muffs. I only use a pair of soft foam ear plugs. My T is a bit amplified tonight, though it may be because I ate whitefish and marinated steak at a local restaurant. I am wondering if the whitefish was coated in aluminum based flour.

 

I used my gas powered weedeater for about an hour today with earplugs. So far T is about the same. I might try the riding lawnmower next.

 

Well, shoot...I mowed the lawn Saturday with earplugs in, but my T was rather loud afterwards. I am hoping it will return to normal soon. I am going to purchase a pair of anti vibration gloves, and install an anti vibration grip on the handlebar to see if that helps. If not, then I may have to use another type of mower.