Women enjoying a summer concert with hearing protection.

We’ve been getting excited about summer fun all year: trips to the beach, chilling out by the pool, and injured hearing? That’s right, summer holds many hidden potential risks to your hearing, either from loud sounds or the environmental situations you could find yourself in. Any sounds over 80 decibels can lead to damage to your hearing, while swimming in pools or other bodies of water can bring about permanent hearing loss. To keep your hearing safe this summer, you need to be aware of your surroundings and take precautions. Keep on reading to discover the summer’s six hidden threats to your hearing.

Wear Hearing Protection at Concerts

Whether you’re at an indoor arena or an outdoor concert venue you still need to use hearing protection during concerts. Live music can have volumes over 90 decibels, even at outdoor concerts, which is inside the danger zone of hearing loss. So regardless of whether you’re attending an outside or inside shows, it’s a good idea to wear earplugs. Earplugs reduce the sound while still allowing you to hear and enjoy the music. If you’re bringing young children to a performance, consider getting them a heavy duty set of earmuffs because kids have more vulnerable hearing than adults.

Fireworks Can Damage Your Ears

Honestly, there are a lot of reasons to avoid fireworks in the summer. It’s not just the 4th of July shows that are professional that can injure your hearing, we mean the backyard fireworks that lead to hundreds of incidents throughout the summertime. Home fireworks achieve volume levels of over 155 which can hurt your ears as well as causing hand problems, loss of vision and home fires. This 4th of July, leave the fireworks to the pros and enjoy the display from a protected and sound distance.

Lawnmowers Can Cause Hearing Loss

If you care about your lawn, mower, edger, and trimer are your best friends. But have you ever noticed how off your ears feel after you get done, making everything sound muffled? That’s because the lawn tools, which are constantly loud, impact your hearing over time. No doubt you’ve noticed lawn professionals using some type of hearing protection, you should take a cue from them and wear earmuffs or earplugs next time you attend to your yard to ensure your hearing stay healthy.

Pools And Beaches, What You Need to do to Safeguard Your Ears

Huge numbers of people suffer from swimmer’s ear each summer, which happens when bacteria-packed water becomes trapped in your ear canal. Swelling and painful earaches are the result when the ear gets infected by the bacteria. It’s not exclusively lakes and rivers that have these bacteria, they can sometimes be found in pools and hot tubs if they are not cleaned and treated properly. No irreversible injury should happen if you get your ears examined by a hearing expert. To be safe, when your swimming in your pool, use specialized swimmers earplugs and keep the chemical balance correct to decrease the chance of getting swimmers ear.

Water Sports And Boats

If you love the water, summer is beach and boating time for you. But, jet ski and boat engines can be loud,we’re talking more than 100 decibels. Continuous exposure to that much noise for about 15 minutes can result in long-term hearing damage. Again, it’s probably in your best interests to use a set of throw away, foam earplugs when you’re out on the water to make certain you don’t unintentionally damage your ears.

Car Races Can Hurt Your Ears

It doesn’t matter what type of auto racing you like, motorcycle, midget, Formula 1, drag racing or stock cars. All of them can present a huge problem for your hearing if you attend many races during the summer. 120 dB is well within the danger zone for hearing impairment and a number of races go well above this. As pointed out before, your children should use muffs whereas you should use earplugs at least. If you don’t, you may not get to enjoy the sound of those engines as you get older.

The site information is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. To receive personalized advice or treatment, schedule an appointment.
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