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Why does nobody talk about how many electricians have tinnitus?
I was at a supply house last Tuesday and the guy behind the counter was saying how 3 out of 4 sparkies he knows have constant ringing in their ears. I looked it up later and the CDC says electricians have one of the highest rates of hearing loss among trades. Never thought about it until he mentioned it but now I'm noticing it everywhere. Anyone else deal with this or am I the only one who ignores earplugs too often?
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murphy.aaron4mo ago
Three out of four, that sounds about right from what I've seen on job sites. My old foreman had it so bad he'd keep asking you to repeat yourself even when you were standing right next to him. He finally went and got custom molded earplugs but by then the damage was already done. You ever notice how the older guys are the ones who never wore anything, but the younger guys still blast those Bluetooth speaker radios right next to the panel? Makes me wonder if we're just trading one kind of noise damage for another.
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gracec164mo ago
Caught myself nodding along to this. I used to be one of those guys who thought earplugs were for wimps and just turned the radio up to drown out the saws. Then I started waking up with that ringing noise that never really goes away, just gets quieter sometimes. Spent a whole weekend at a family cookout asking my niece to repeat herself because I couldn't hear her over the grill. Got a cheap pair of reusable plugs after that. You're dead on about the Bluetooth speakers too, I see guys on site with those things cranked to max and they're already squinting and leaning in to hear their own phone calls.
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miller.rowan4mo ago
The ringing never really stops once it starts, does it? That's the scary part with hearing damage, it's not like a cut that heals up. Custom molded plugs are great but you're right, the damage is already done by then. And the Bluetooth speaker thing is such a weird reversal, like they're blasting their ears proactively instead of reactively. Maybe we're all just trying to drown out the same silence, just with different tools.
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