However, the experience of trainee Wagga audiometrist Renee Stratton, 40, shows this is not always the case.

Working on reception at a family-run dry cleaners business in Wagga during the 1990s and early 2000s, Ms Stratton said the injury developed over a long period of time.

"It wasn't sudden," she said.

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At the dry cleaners, Ms Stratton would often walk between the front counter and the loud machines out the back.

"The steam presses would make a lot of noise," she said.

Ms Stratton said the hearing loss eventually became obvious over time with her kids and partner constantly having to repeat conversations.

"It definitely affected my lifestyle," she said.

"I was forever asking for repeats and it became embarrasing."

Ms Stratton eventually went for a hearing test that revealed she suffers from moderate hearing loss, which is irreversable.

When she started wearing hearing aids she was surprised at how much clearer everything sounded.

"I no longer miss bits of conversations," she said.

Ms Stratton is now an audiometrist student at Wagga's Audika Hearing Clinic and hopes to break the stigma around young people and hearing aids.

She recalls having clients who were reluctant to wear hearing aids due to their age.

"There's a stigma that says you have to be old to wear hearing aids," she said.

Audiometrist at Audika Hearing Clinic Vivienne Hughes agrees.

"Hearing loss can happen to anyone."

Ms Hughes describes the sense of hearing as like a "plush carpet."

"When it's new, you tread on it and it bounces up again," she said.

"That's like when the hair-like nerve cells are exposed to noise, they go down and recover again.

"But if they are exposed to too much noise, they suffer irreparable damage.

"That's like a carpet in a high traffic area, it stops bouncing back and recovering and just sits flat."

This month is Tradies Health Awareness Month and Optometrists and Audiology professionals are joining forces to remind local labourers, tradespeople, and home DIY'ers alike to be vigilant of looking after their eyes and ears.

It comes after new research has found that of the 9,366 technicians, tradespeople, labourers, and machinery operators in Wagga, with around half of which are not taking the preventative measures to look after their eyes and ears.

Whereas in the past there were inadequate protections for worker safety, Ms Hughes said employers are now required to provide hearing protection for employees.

However, she said this means the onus is really on the individual to wear it.

"Sometimes young people think they are six foot tall and bullet proof and that it will never happen to them, but it does," she said.

Meanwhile, Wagga Specsavers optometrist Anne Mill said she cannot stress how important it is to look after eyesight.

"Once you lose it, there is no getting it back," she said.

Miss Mill often said eye health is often a major issue among tradespeople.

"I see a lot of tradies come in with bits of metal in their eye and we've never actually seen them for an eye test before," she said.

She said they don't come in for a regular eye test because they don't think it necessary.

"Eye tests are not so much about wearing glasses, but that it's important to get an eye health check every two years," she said.

"All our eye tests are bulk billed, so we don't charge for them if people have a Medicare card."

Miss Mill said every patient also receives a free test with an OCT machine that scans all the layers at the back of the eye and can detect a range of different eye diseases.

Miss Mill said the working environment of tradies makes them more vulnerable to eyesight injuries and that they can take preventative measures such as wearing safety glasses.

Specsavers provides safety glasses to tradies and workers in other professions.

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