can sleeping with ear plugs in damage your hearing long term ?
shoestring25
Posts: 4,715 Forum Member
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been struggling sleeping for a while now so i got some of those foam ear plugs put them in and i seem to sleep alot better now. but when i get up some mornings i get a ringing in either ear or both. could this be caused by the ear plugs and is it sign of hearing damage?
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I wear them in bed all the time, got so used to them I need to.
I've tried it and it's okay for about an hour but then the earplugs start to irritate slightly and then, an hour or so after that, I'm wide away, focussed on trying to ignore the discomfort which rapidly becomes agony.
I dunno.
I think I have small ear canals or summat. I have the same problem with all in-ear earphones, bluetooth headsets and all that junk.
I change mine every couple if days for hygiene reasons . It was costing me a fortune- I buy the yellow foam ones in Boots which cost £3 for 2 pairs. Recently saw the same ones on Amazon for £5 fir 50 pairs. Exactly the same 3M ones - they seems to be in the workman/construction section.
£3 for 2 pairs? That's a rip-off! I got 20 pairs for about $2 in the US when I was in some noisy hotels over there. Still got some left now. That Amazon price seems better. Earplugs are earplugs I think, can't see there being much difference between them.
Ha ha try buying some from eBay from Hong Kong, they must be toxic they smell so bad!
You could be pushing wax further into your ear.
Yes indeed Mint. I use the plugs and have problems with ear wax.
OP May need to use ear drops to dissolve build up wax.
I advice people to use ear drops and not get their ears syringed as I blame syringing for my tinnitus.
The plugs sometimes disappear into my earholes a bit too far and I have to hoik them out with a bit of wire.
What sort of ear plugs have you tried?
I found the foam ones pretty useless. I use silicone ones now that mould to your ear and they block out most sound.
Pretty much every type that I've come across in 25 years of working in noisy environments.
I'm pretty sure it's my problem, though, rather than the earplugs.
As I said, even stuff like a bluetooth earpiece has me in agony after an hour or so of driving.
I'd expect that if that happened to a lot of people they'd be designed differently due to the complaints.
It's not really a big deal at work cos I can just take them out when I use the loo, give my ears a rub and I'm fine for another couple of hours and it just gives me an excuse not to answer the phone at all when I'm driving.
The only time it has been an issue was when I was living in a noisy environment and I just flat-out couldn't sleep with ear-plugs in due to the gradually increasing discomfort.
I wore wax earplugs nearly every night for over 15 years.
If anything the audiologist accused it of making my hearing more sensitive rather than less sensitive.
Apparently your brain tries to make up for the loss of sound.
But personally I believe I was already sensitive to sound anyway with it why I wore them in the first place.
Really? I wear them every night and my ears are fine.