Protect your ears from loud noise to hold on to your hearing Your hearing is both sensitive and fragile. Noise that is loud enough and heard long enough will damage your hearing. Noise-induced hearing loss adds up over your lifetime. While there are other causes of inner ear hearing loss, noise-induced hearing loss can be prevented by avoiding exposure to loud noises or by wearing earplugs or earmuffs when exposure is unavoidable.
Some people have the mistaken idea they've become used to loud noise.
In fact, cautioned Gates, they've already damaged their hearing so they don't hear sound at the volume they once did. Nor is youth a protection from hearing loss. At first, loud noise causes temporary hearing loss, but repeated exposure causes the loss to become permanent, as more inner-ear hair cells and their nerve endings are destroyed. Although recent research at the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center is studying ways to grow new hair cells, such a possibility is still years away, said Gates, who is also professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery in the UW School of Medicine. If it is loud enough and you are exposed long enough, hearing loss will result.