Med question for ears????

[BigIron]

^^ So now you have no plausible deniability when asked if you've had your ass handed to you by a bird.

 

[skim]

Will that come up during the background investigation??

 

[HeyJoe]

High Anxiety

Will that come up during the background investigation??

Sure will and they'll know you have High Anxiety (pun intended)

 

[Kriegadler]

It's possible....haha.

 

[puck_11]

My roomate has really bad hearing in one ear, he just needs to get a waiver for it now if it gets worse. I'll have him post on here once he gets back for the weekend.

 

[cisforsmasher]

I am the aforementioned roommate. I wouldnt worry about your hearing too much until you get close to the 45 level (which i believe is the Navy Max, check with the flight surgeon). Until then they just tell you to wear ear plugs whenever you fly or whenever you are experience higher than normal sound level (lawnmowers, concerts, etc). The beep test is the standard screener but if you are marginal you get to see an audiologist who runs a lot more tests. From what i can remember, the battery includes tests where they ask you to repeat one and two syllable words as they come over the headphones. Then they simulate wind in one ear and give beeps in the other. Another variation of the beep test where you hold the button down until you cant hear the sound anymore and then press when it becomes audible again. There are plenty of ways to make you miserable in that little box. I have a bad habit of falling asleep during those tests which does not help my case. We are all exposed to extraordinary amounts of noise throughout our career so hearing waivers are not that uncommon. Good luck dodging the NAMI whammy, but you should be fine with that hearing loss level. On the other hand, i cant guarantee anything pertaining to the whole in your eardrum. So far the flight surgeons and audiologists have been real understanding. In fact, they have been very helpful in keeping me flying.

 

[phrogdriver]

I'm in a similar boat, tubes in the ears and all. Had a parrot greatly decrease hearing in my right ear several years ago.

I had the same thing happen. I had to give up my earlier career in piracy in order to pursue my dream of naval aviation.

In any case, I too had tympanoplasty. They found a hole in my eardrum right before I was supposed to start API. A little tympanoplasty and some surgery on the bones in my ear, and I was good to go.

 

[usmarinemike]

There are plenty of ways to make you miserable in that little box.

Yeah, I went through that, too, when I got my flight crew up chit. They were surprised by the huge drop between MEPS and that physical. It took all the way from 0800 till chow. I blame it on Phrogs and my assinine nonuse of earplugs.

I didn't have to do all that for my SNA physical though. Praise the Lord.

 

[smustang51]

Thanks for the info guys...that worry has been plaguing my thoughts....primarily due to my recruiter with his doom and gloom mentality

 

[McCPilot]

I've never fallen asleep during a hearing test, although today when I was getting retested (turns out I'm 35db at 2000 in my right ear, not good but still waiverable) I kept getting distracted by a freaking lizard crawling around the sound proof room... have no clue how a lizard gets into a hospital and finds his way into a solid sound proof box... fairly distracting, but at least it kept me awake

 

[nugget61]

Reviving an old thread, can anyone comment on the current limit before a wavier is required and what the waiverable limit is? Tested today and ranged from 00 to 35 in both ears.

 

[BACONATOR]

Reviving an old thread, can anyone comment on the current limit before a wavier is required and what the waiverable limit is? Tested today and ranged from 00 to 35 in both ears.

You can look it up on the NAMI waiver guide. I believe it may vary for different frequency ranges, but it's pretty high: something like 50.

 

[kj2008]

Did you end up getting a waiver for 35db at 2000Hz? I was just told that I was waiverable for NFO at 40db at 2000Hz but not for SNA. The standards are the exact same for both. How could this be?!