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Noise reduction earplugs?


Katy
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I’ve had ads lately for loop noise-reduction earplugs.  I just wondered if anyone has tried them, or ones similar.  DS3 is a screamer.  He’s low vision with sensory issues.  Sometimes it’s fine.  Other times he hits a certain sound that gives me a visceral urge to violence. Today is one of those days.  Actually I’m not sure it’s him hitting a certain sound as it is whether I’m getting a migraine or not, when it bugs me more than usual. Or maybe he has weather induced migraines too and is just too young to express that’s why he screams more on days above 90 degrees when the barometric pressure is falling. I’ve tried regular earplugs but they seem to reduce noise too much to function well. 

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Just now, Pen said:

Usually earplugs tell Decibels reduction. You could try different levels

 

i think idea that your son may have headache (or similar) and that could be reason for screaming sounds worth looking into

Yeah, I just asked him and at first he said no, then immediately asked for medicine.  I gave him Motrin and he settled down immediately. And the earplugs are only $26 on Amazon so I went ahead and ordered them. Totally worth it if it reduces my stress on a headache day.

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You can go to Target and get a tub of plain old normal cheap ones (very discreet) for $10. The problem with some fancier earplugs is they are meant to let through human voices and only reduce equipment and deep bass noise. So make sure what your $$ are trying to reduce. They should be rated for db. The ones at Target/Walmart are going to be around 28-32 db. They work fine in general. I used them when ds was young. Not constantly, haha, just during diaper changes. 

Is this dc getting any speech therapy or other services? Screaming is communication, so you might need some communication or ABA type behavioral work. I assume you're getting stuff, just saying it's something to think through. With ds and his apraxia, they told us to expect behaviors to increase if we didn't get the speech working. So with him feeling so much with his mix, it makes sense that he's screaming. 

Have you looked into interoception for the sensory? With him not realizing he's in pain and not self advocating, that's interoception. I'm not sure how young they're starting, but it's worth a try. You would get on Kelly Mahler's FB group and ask for an OT near you who is trained or just for tips on how to do it yourself with a young dc. 

If he's low vision, what is your communication plan for print? Larger or braille or?? (Showing the extent of my ignorance here, since my only experience was a legally blind friend in high school many moons ago) Just htinking how you'd do visual response checkins with a low vision student. If communication is down (which it is when he's screaming, his sensory overwhelmed him and communication went down), you need alternate communication. So that, seems to me, means you need either braille or low vision version of response cards.

https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product/body-check-ring/

This is the product I use with my ds. You can see the words and think through how you could do that. To change behaviors you both improve what you can on your end (recognizing, predicting) and improve what you can on his end (self awareness and communication). I'm just thinking how in the world you do communication when communication goes down with a low vision dc who has sensory issues. That's what you want to google, because communication may be where it's at.

I had no clue you had this going on! Wow. You're gonna get creative. You'll find ways. Think multi-faceted though, because it's probably going to be a mix, not one thing. Both of my kids have had language drop when sensory is big and it doesn't go away, sorry. Now maybe you'll be lucky and someone else will say oh yeah my screamer sensory kid is super zen these days. Is he often a screamer or only with pain? My ds was a hitter and he still hits. So if he had that kind of pain, he wouldn't scream; he'd make holes in drywall. 

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6 hours ago, Katy said:

Or maybe he has weather induced migraines too and is just too young to express that’s why he screams more on days above 90 degrees when the barometric pressure is falling. I’ve tried regular earplugs but they seem to reduce noise too much to function well. 

Ok, I can read. Yeah, some of the earplugs block a lot. Try a different brand. Look for something with a lower db rating maybe. 

Have they done an MRI and genetics on him to figure out what is causing these headaches?

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L has a set of Calmer ones. They definitely help reduce the sensory load  in situations where there is a lot of background noise and you are trying to carry on a conversation. Not as good as noise cancelling headphones, but something reasonable to have in the toolbox for the days that everything causes physical pain.
 

 

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9 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Ok, I can read. Yeah, some of the earplugs block a lot. Try a different brand. Look for something with a lower db rating maybe. 

Have they done an MRI and genetics on him to figure out what is causing these headaches?

Many many many MRI's and genetics.  He has a complicated medical history.  The headache idea is new today, because I get headaches and his behavior is worse on my headache days.  I thought it was me but DH commented too. 

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I really hope it's headaches and that the pain reliever solves this. 

Musician's earplugs come in different levels of sound blocking, but they retain the natural dynamics of sound while doing so. Earasers are one brand (and that brand might make regular plugs too--you'll have to check). 

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11 hours ago, PeterPan said:

You can go to Target and get a tub of plain old normal cheap ones (very discreet) for $10. The problem with some fancier earplugs is they are meant to let through human voices and only reduce equipment and deep bass noise. So make sure what your $$ are trying to reduce. They should be rated for db. The ones at Target/Walmart are going to be around 28-32 db. They work fine in general. I used them when ds was young. Not constantly, haha, just during diaper changes. 

Is this dc getting any speech therapy or other services? Screaming is communication, so you might need some communication or ABA type behavioral work. I assume you're getting stuff, just saying it's something to think through. With ds and his apraxia, they told us to expect behaviors to increase if we didn't get the speech working. So with him feeling so much with his mix, it makes sense that he's screaming. 

Have you looked into interoception for the sensory? With him not realizing he's in pain and not self advocating, that's interoception. I'm not sure how young they're starting, but it's worth a try. You would get on Kelly Mahler's FB group and ask for an OT near you who is trained or just for tips on how to do it yourself with a young dc. 

If he's low vision, what is your communication plan for print? Larger or braille or?? (Showing the extent of my ignorance here, since my only experience was a legally blind friend in high school many moons ago) Just htinking how you'd do visual response checkins with a low vision student. If communication is down (which it is when he's screaming, his sensory overwhelmed him and communication went down), you need alternate communication. So that, seems to me, means you need either braille or low vision version of response cards.

https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product/body-check-ring/

This is the product I use with my ds. You can see the words and think through how you could do that. To change behaviors you both improve what you can on your end (recognizing, predicting) and improve what you can on his end (self awareness and communication). I'm just thinking how in the world you do communication when communication goes down with a low vision dc who has sensory issues. That's what you want to google, because communication may be where it's at.

I had no clue you had this going on! Wow. You're gonna get creative. You'll find ways. Think multi-faceted though, because it's probably going to be a mix, not one thing. Both of my kids have had language drop when sensory is big and it doesn't go away, sorry. Now maybe you'll be lucky and someone else will say oh yeah my screamer sensory kid is super zen these days. Is he often a screamer or only with pain? My ds was a hitter and he still hits. So if he had that kind of pain, he wouldn't scream; he'd make holes in drywall. 

I’m sorry I somehow didn’t see this yesterday. Please don’t quote, I’m sure I’ll delete this later for his privacy. Yes he’s had all kinds of therapy. His speech has improved a lot lately.  He’s also extremely attuned to my moods.  If I see something frustrating on the news (yesterday it was the Capital hearings) and I sigh he says, “Are you okay?” Nearly constantly until I relax.   I don’t know if this is inborn personality (adopted, circumstances did not allow us to know much of his bio family) or simply because he’s the one I did the closest thing to attachment parenting with.

When we first brought him home from the NICU at 7 weeks old I basically wore him for most of the day except for a few sessions of tummy time. He had tremors and seizures and when swaddled and tied to me he would relax and sleep. And then in the evenings he had colic so until we moved him to that stinky allergy formula I’d pace laps around the house with him every night while he screamed. 

He had a slow brain bleed that made him completely lose his vision. We spent a lot of time at the children’s hospital with multiple specialists. 

The swelling went down, some vision returned. At first they said CVI.  Now his vision has improved so much in one eye I suspect they might call it delayed vision impairment. But maybe not.  When he’s tired or stressed or in a new place his vision deteriorates quickly.  We do have many braille books but most of the time he knows most of the letters and the sounds.  He got angry yesterday because he wants to read Bob books but when we work on reading it’s exhausting for him and he pretty quickly passes his frustration tolerance. 

I suspected apraxia after (I think you) mentioned it a year or two ago, but his speech therapist was like, “One thing at a time.”  I bought all the books and was already doing most of the things anyway.  He’s not the first child we had with a speech delay.  I’m not super worried. It seems to me his speech and frankly global delays are exactly as long as he had no vision, which is very typical for kids with CVI. When he’s frustrated he has a more difficult time with speech but when he’s relaxed he’s nearly caught up. 

He learned that DH & I will jump at high pitched screaming when he was very young because it’s a sign he may need neurosurgery.  He wasn’t the first vision impaired baby we cared for, and one did need surgery so our pediatrician shook her head, said she understood why we were in a panic, but he just found an extremely effective way of getting our attention. He agreed and laughed when she asked him about it.  

So now when it’s obvious that’s what’s going on I try to treat it like a tantrum and put him in his room until he calms. But sometimes (yesterday) it seems more like genuine distress than a tantrum.  It’s almost always when I have a migraine and it doesn’t help that he hits this sounds that makes me want to be violent.  I never would (I’ve taken care of babies who were shaken), but it’s interesting that it’s always when I’m most irritable.  Which makes me wonder if it’s a reaction to me or simply that he’s in pain too. 
 

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