Flying and Hearing Loss

 

As a little boy I loved the idea of being able to fly. Superman’s greatest gift in my opinion was his ability to fly, yes faster than a speeding bullet able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, was it a bird was it a plane, no it was Superman! I would run around the house with a towel wrapped around my neck jumping of my bed trying desperately to fly. I loved the idea of flying but never really loved heights. I remember that first time I recognized this failing in myself when we visited the Grand Canyon and I got that wobbly feeling in my knees and that tingling in my feet as I approached the edge. Even though I don’t love heights I still love the idea of flying which is why the idea of flying via the indoor vertical wind tunnel also known as indoor skydiving has really intrigued me. This is one of those things that I have really wanted to do. I have watched the video and have talked to many people that have tried this and loved it.

Recently I had a patient come in to see me after having taken part in an indoor skydiving adventure. The patient shared with me their personal experience with indoor skydiving. I have known that this was potentially a fairly noisy thing to do, as it is the powerful wind turbines at close proximity that allows you to be lifted off the ground and into the air. This particular patient did report that he was given earplugs but that they were ill fitting. The reported noise was painful to this gentleman and upon exit he had a hard time hearing with his ears feeling full and plugged. Initially the thought was that perhaps he had suffered from temporary threshold shift but as days went by the ears did not get any better as the plugged feeling persisted. After a few weeks and several visits with his Physician he was sent to see me. Unfortunately what I ended up finding was a significant noise induced hearing loss that is permanent. The loss was mild to moderate in severity and was primarily in the high frequency spectrum which was why he felt plugged primarily hearing low and mid-frequencies normally.  When I tried to research the sound levels encountered in these structures there was not a lot of information available though most sources reported the sound levels exceeding 120-130 DB. These sound levels approach and exceed the threshold of pain for a lot of people. These levels can and did cause significant damage in the short time of exposure that most of these events are limited to. The thing about foam insert hearing protection is that every ear can vary in shape and size and even if there is s small crack in the seal the effect of the noise is the same as if you were not wearing hearing protection.

I still really want to fly like superman but I think I will make sure that I wear excellent hearing protection before flying.