Shari Eberts, hearing health advocate, author of Hear and Beyond, and founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com, explains why as little as 14 minutes at a concert can permanently damage your hearing. She shares simple, affordable ways to protect your ears, from foam and custom-molded plugs to acoustic plugs and over-ear muffs, and why protection often makes the music sound clearer.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Well, Shari, it’s so great to see you. Thanks for getting up early for us this morning.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Absolutely, my pleasure to be here.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And we really appreciate you, first of all, for writing a very thoughtful piece on rock concerts and earplugs. We’ll get to that in a minute. But you’ve had a very interesting journey when it comes to hearing loss.
You actually experienced some effects early on in your adulthood.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Yeah, I first noticed my hearing loss when I was in my mid-20s. I was in business school. And pretty quickly into the first semester, I started missing things in class.
Sometimes it was a comment someone would make. Sometimes the whole room would burst out laughing. And I was looking around, trying to figure out what the was.
So I knew something was going on with my hearing. My father had had hearing loss as well. So there is a genetic component to it.
And I guess I was sort of attuned to some of the signs of hearing loss. Many people are not, but I think I was a little bit more because of my father.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And not to get too personal, but you were able to reach a practitioner and, I guess, find ways to resolve or at least mediate the effects of the hearing loss.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Well, mediate, yes and no. I mean, hearing loss is something that impacts all aspects of life. And I do wear hearing aids, two hearing aids, which I am very grateful for.
But even with hearing aids, the hearing loss is still there. It’s not like glasses. A lot of times people think hearing aids are like glasses, where you put glasses on.
And for many people with vision problems, it just fixes it, right? You’re cured of that inability to see clearly. But with hearing loss, it’s not like that.
Hearing aids definitely help. They make things louder. New technologies are helping to make the sound and the speech clearer.
But it really doesn’t return your hearing back to normal. But certainly, I am very lucky that I’m able to communicate well using my hearing aids and other skills as well.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And as we’ve covered before on the show, and I know you know intimately, technology has evolved tremendously. I mean, you can’t even, there used to be a stigma when I was a kid and, you know, that people, you know, and, you know, you have the, you can see the hearing aid.
Now they’re, I think that stigma has gone away, right? And the technology is such that you can adapt your hearing aid for your own personal needs. It’s not the same as for Jeff Snyder or somebody else.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Yeah, absolutely. I think we’re definitely making great progress breaking down that stigma. I think there still is some stigma there because for better or for worse, hearing loss is still associated many times with aging.
It’s still many times the brunt of the joke. You know, if you watch some of these television programs, you wouldn’t really ever see anyone bump into something, you know, if they, they had vision problems and the laugh track, you know, would go off. But if somebody misunderstands something because they don’t hear it well, it can still be, you know, the punchline of the joke.
So I think there still is some stigma there, but we’re lucky that that seems to be going down now that everybody is sort of walking around with things in their ears and a lot of the new technologies and the hearing technologies look cool. So that definitely helps as well.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
So you wrote a piece. I want to get to the piece you wrote because this really touched me as someone who has been to many a Grateful Dead concert. It’s loud depending on where you sit and you’re exposed.
Let’s start with the exposure. You may love your favorite band and it could be, you go see an orchestra, but there’s still sound waves coming at you and you’re exposed to regardless of age to potential for hearing loss.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Absolutely. And I think that in sometimes in our society, you know, loud has become equivalent with fun, right? So it’s like, Oh, turn up the volume.
You go to sporting events, you go to concerts and there are competitions sometimes like who’s the loudest sporting stadium. And when I read things like that, it just makes me sad really, because hearing loss is something that’s challenging to live with. There are ways to live well with it, but it’s challenging and we should really all take more care of our hearing.
You know, I think that we take care of our bodies and our health in so many ways and hearing is just not on that list. And I really think it’s important to put it on that list.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah. And if you don’t have your hearing and you, you unfortunately experienced some hearing loss, it can lead to other problems down the line. I’ve been reading about dementia and other cognitive problems that may come as a, go ahead.
I’m sorry.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
No, absolutely. Hearing loss is definitely associated with many other health issues. It’s actually twice as common in people with diabetes.
There’s a high correlation between hearing loss and cardiovascular disease, as well as a higher risk of falls. And there’s been a lot of research into dementia as well. And it’s not that it’s a cause of dementia.
You know, we don’t have to panic. You have hearing loss. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to get dementia, but it is associated with a higher risk factor.
And I think part of that, I’m not a scientist, but I think part of that is with the social isolation that sometimes comes with hearing loss, because it is more challenging to socialize and interact and communicate. And so sometimes it just becomes too much work and too exhausting. And a lot of people with hearing loss can isolate themselves.
And that’s obviously another risk factor for dementia. So it’s not necessarily a causation, but certainly there is a correlation between hearing loss and overall health.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
I want to go back to the concert or loud sporting event. You know, obviously people should be taking care of their hearing. Earplugs, you mentioned in the article, earplugs can play a role.
Are we talking about earplugs, like when I went swimming as a kid to prevent me from getting water in my ear, or have they evolved to a place where they look kind of cool, you can’t even tell they’re there, but yet they block out some of the higher frequency noise that could really damage your hearing long-term?
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Yeah, there are so many different types of earplugs and earmuffs as well that go, you know, over the ear. Earplugs typically go inside the ear. You can get them in different colors.
You can get them made in different patterns. You can get them with, you know, your team’s sports, you know, logo on there. So there are lots of fun ways to wear earplugs and to protect your hearing when you’re at a concert or a sporting event.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
And if they’re in ear, because I think you mentioned some of the earmuffs that maybe would be over ear, and I’ve seen a lot of kids, by the way, with parents that have brought them to events and maybe, you know, to kind of protect their hearing, but for the inner ear, where they’re actually put in the ear, are they like customized so that they fit into, you know, because I actually have cauliflower ear from wrestling in one of my ears, so would they be customized for someone like myself or anyone to fit their particular ear canal?
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Yeah, that’s definitely a possibility. They’re all different types. I mean, you can just go to the drugstore and get sort of those foam ones, you know, and as long as you insert them properly, they will be very effective.
You have to sort of roll them so that they fit deep inside the ear and then they’ll expand to fill up that spot. It’s also pretty easy through an audiologist to get a custom-made earplugs. I have those and they just sort of shoot your ears full of this self-hardening gel.
It’s kind of a strange experience, but then they fit exactly into your ears, so that can be helpful as well. And then there are a lot of, you know, ones that are more acoustic, acoustic earplugs so that it doesn’t impact the sound of the music as much, because I think that sometimes holds people back at a concert is that, you know, they don’t necessarily want to make the music sound not as good as they want to hear it.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay, so to that point, you do this, you’re not going to have a lesson experience. What does it do? Does it, and again, you’re not the scientist, I totally understand that, but from your experience, does it take out some of the higher end that what might be a little or lower end that might be a little bit more damaging to the ear mechanisms in our inside our ears?
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Yeah, I mean, I’m not the expert on that. My understanding is that it’s not targeting a particular frequency of sound. It’s really just trying to block some of that noise from coming into the ear.
So I’m not sure if I’m the best person to answer that question.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Okay, well, that’s fair. But you have had very positive experiences, obviously, with wearing the hearing earplugs, and you’ve not had a dull sense at the concert or the movie event or the sporting event, you still are able to go and enjoy yourself.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Absolutely. And honestly, I enjoy myself more when I am protecting my hearing. It might be partially because of my hearing aids that really amplify the sound.
So I definitely am very sensitive to loud sounds overall. But I find when I wear, I really personally like the noise cancelling ear muffs that go over the ear. But everybody’s different, you know, and you can try different types to see what is most comfortable for you.
But I find that I get a lot more out of the experience when I am not, you know, feeling pain in my ears because things are too loud. A lot of times also when concerts or sporting events are so loud, I find the sound to be more distorted and be more muffled. And so I find that I have more clarity, actually, when I’m wearing those earplugs and those earmuffs, which is kind of counterintuitive.
You would think that that would take away some of the clarity. But for me, at least, in my experience, it actually helps clarify the sound.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Can I ask you, this was not necessarily covered, pardon me, in your piece, but going to an audiologist, how old should you be? Obviously, you experienced hearing loss at an earlier age than maybe some do. But some people may have hearing loss and not know it.
So is it worthwhile to go to an ENT, an otolaryngologist, an audiologist on some regular basis when you hit some age in order to be tested?
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Absolutely. I mean, I really think that, you know, in your 40s, your 50s, it’s great to get a baseline because that way you’ll know if something is changing over time. It’s one of those things where everybody knows their cholesterol number or, you know, they know, do I have 20-20 vision?
So there’s been some work actually out of John Hopkins to create something called the hearing number, which would be, you know, an average of these four particular tones in your audiogram. And to really encourage people to understand what is their hearing number at every age, just to get that baseline and be able to track it. And like we talked about, hearing and your ability to hear is such an important component of overall health.
And so it’s really important to make sure that you’re tracking that and keeping your ears as healthy as possible.
Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network
Yeah, really well said. And, you know, between getting your teeth clean from a dentist, going to the otolaryngologist, getting your eyes checked, you can get ahead of so many diseases. And so much with Sherry is in our control.
Sherry, it’s a great piece. Thank you so much for your advocacy. And thank you so much for joining us.
And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.
Shari Eberts founder of LivingWithHearingLoss.com
Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.
