Excited to be headed off to Florida soon with the family.  Big week ahead of us. Safe travels if anyone else is traveling for xmas. Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a great holiday!

John

Hi Everyone,

Hope everyone is doing well, I have some exciting new, over the past weekend my family and I got a new puppy.  My wife and I both grew up having family dogs and we thought that it would be a great time to get one of our own. I especially missed having a dog coming from a hunting family. We have always wanted a lab of our own and since we are very active we thought it would be a great fit to our family.  We have been searching for a few months now and just this past week finally got in touch with a breeder who had a littler of 10 puppies.  When we finally called her she told us that they only had 5 left so we ought to get there as fast as possibly to reserve ours.  We were so excited to finally get one that that night we jumped in the car and headed to check them out.  We originally wanted a girl, but when we got there the "runt of the pack" as she called him Pumpkin came waddling over to us and fell asleep right beneath our feet.  With being there not even 20 mins we knew that he was the one. We then exchanged contact info and put down a deposit and we picked him up yesterday.  We decided to switch his name from Pumpkin to Finley, being from an Irish family we thought it fit well.  

Enjoy the day!

John

Remember that October is National Audiology Awareness Month and National Protect Your Hearing Month.  The month is almost over so make sure to make an appointment with a local audiologist to get your hearing checked.  Bring your spouse, the kids your parents..bring anyone!  Hearing loss is not specific to one age demographic so everyone can benefit from getting their ears checked out.  I am sure most people are tied up right now with the kids being in school, sports and Halloween right around the corner.  If that is the case make sure to block out some free time in the near future to get everyone's hearing checked.  Have an awesome day!

Best,
John

Hi Everyone,

I recently wrote a guest post for Melinda Lang on her blog titled cmtnyus.wordpress.com/.  The post talked about how making healthy living choices can help reduce hearing loss.  Doing little things like limiting your exposure to loud noises or even kicking that habit of smoking you have had for years can help protect your hearing and reduce your chances of losing it in the future.  Melinda's blog focuses mainly on Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disorder or more commonly known as CMT.  CMT is a rare genetic neuromuscular disorder that affects 1 out of 2,500 people or approximately 150,000 people in the United States.  Melinda, as I am trying to do with hearing loss, is trying to spread awareness on CMT.  Her blog is very informative, so check it out if you wish to learn more on CMT.  Below is a link to Melinda's blog and my article, thanks again!

http://cmtnyus.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/why-making-healthy-lifestyle-choices-can-help-reduce-hearing-loss/

On a side note, today is Friday and I am very excited for the weekend.  Headed out to the shooting range with my dad for the first time in about a month and a half and more importantly spending some quality time with the family as fall begins to hit full affect.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

Enjoy,
John

Hi Everyone,

October is National Audiology Awareness Month and National Protect your Hearing Month.  Both of these were established in order to increase public awareness of what audiology is and what audiologists do and the importance of hearing protection.  Here are some quick facts on hearing loss that may persuade you to get your hearing checked today!

-An estimated 36 million Americans suffer from hearing loss
-While more than have of these people are younger than the age of 65
-Hearing loss is the 3rd most common health problem in the U.S.
-1 in 3 people over 60 have hearing loss, while 1 in 2 people over 85 have hearing loss

Hearing loss does not only affect people who are over the age of 60! Children can also experience hearing loss at a young age.

-It is said that approx. 12% of all children ages 6-19 have some form of noise-induced hearing loss
-Many kids these days are damaging their hearing by prolonged exposure to loud noises.  Example, iPods, concerts, car radios, sporting events.
-Noise-induced hearing loss is permanent but is very preventable.


With that being said I have an appointment with my audiologist this Friday and I know my father who is affected by hearing loss and uses hearing aids to help increase his hearing has an appointment set up for next week.  If you or a loved one has some form of hearing loss or has seen some signs of decreased hearing levels do not hesitate to set up an appointment to get checked out.  By protecting your hearing today you could save your hearing for the future!

I hope everyone is having a great day and remember to get your hearing checked out!

Best,
John

Hi Everyone,

I recently wrote a guest post for Lindsay McLeod's blog titled lindsay-mcleod.com.  Lindsay is a registered physiotherapist who works in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  She began her blog in an effort to inspire and lead others in living a full and healthy lifestyle, encourage fellowship and dialogue between therapists and to give some insight into her profession.  The article I wrote for her blog focused on how living a healthy lifestyle can help prevent hearing loss.  It shed light on how we should all avoid loud noises, concentrate on eating a healthy diet and why we should quit smoking.  You can all check out her blog and my post at:

http://lindsay-mcleod.com/2012/09/04/fighting-hearing-loss-with-a-healthy-lifestyle/

Enjoy,
John

Hi Everyone,

Well to say the least it has been awhile since I have blogged.  Hope everyone is doing great and had a great rest of their summer.  As you all know I am very passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and over the past few years I have become more and more interested in hearing loss.  My father and grandfathers are affected by hearing loss and I feel like their is a general lack of understanding around the issue.  I have been researching hearing loss more and more and as of late have begun writing about the topic and looking to guest post on others blogs who are also passionate about these issues and trying to spread awareness.

I recently guest posted on Ali Dykhouse's blog titled, Audiblogogist.  The article I wrote for her talked about the recent studies on the correlation between diabetes and hearing loss.  Here is a link to her site so you can all check out the article,  Thanks again for the post Ali!

http://www.audiblogogist.com/2012/07/did-you-know-there-is.html

Best,

John