Do I have the ear miggly due to my wisdom teeth?

January 30, 2009 12:42 PM

Ever since having my wisdom teeth removed last summer, I've been experiencing persistent crackling in my right ear. Is it related?

The extraction itself involved cutting three out of the four teeth out due to impaction, and during my week-long recovery period I experienced a lot of pain in my lower jaw on the right hand side, which resulted in a lot of deferred pain in the right ear and an awful lot of crackling. Since I've recovered, I've had no further jaw pain, but the crackling has not gone away.

I've experienced intermittent crackling in my ears throughout my life, which I'm assuming is normal. Usually, if it feels like they're plugged or need to pop (like when I'm on an airplane), I'll do this thing where I sort of do the process of yawning without opening my mouth, and that will clear them.

I'm having to do this several times per day now since my teeth were extracted. Has this happened to anyone else? Is it normal? I recently had my ears thoroughly checked for an entirely different reason, and nothing was wrong with them physiologically or hearing-wise.

posted by scarykarrey to health & fitness (7 answers total)

Disclaimer: I have zero ENT training.

But

My ears crackle a lot- and I believe it's happening in my eustachian tubes which connect to your middle ear exit somewhere in the back of the throat.

The removal of your teeth and subsequent subtle changes in the dynamics of your bite could be causing your tubes to open and close with the movement of your jaw - in a new, noisier way.
posted by hellboundforcheddar at 12:54 PM on January 30, 2009

ack

"it's happening in THE eustachian tubes which connect to THE middle ear AND exit in the back of the throat"
posted by hellboundforcheddar at 12:55 PM on January 30, 2009

I'm not sure what 'crackling' means, but could it be related to TMJ? I ended up with TMJ after getting my wisdom teeth yanked. It's not uncommon. Causes jaw/ear related weirdness for me (but I couldn't describe it as 'crackling').
posted by mudpuppie at 1:06 PM on January 30, 2009

Well, I guess the crackling is more what I hear when I "clear" my ears. I just have the need to clear them a lot now, and the weirdness is in one ear and not the other.
posted by scarykarrey at 1:13 PM on January 30, 2009

Eustachian Tube Dysfunction


"...sometimes the eustachian tubes opens and closes rhythmically, causing a clicking noise. This is usually due to palatal myoclonus...."
posted by hellboundforcheddar at 1:14 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

After having one wisdom tooth removed, in three bits - with a lot of digging, I had a lengthy period of sensitive and somewhat swollen glands around that area, which did put a little pressure on my ears quite like you describe, including the crackling. It went away over time. I never really worked out what it was - everything was and stayed fine otherwise. In my own superstitious way I always put it down to my body not liking the anesthetics, but this is obviously nonsense. Possibly it takes quite a long time for everything to heal really properly.
posted by Namlit at 3:06 PM on January 30, 2009

I have the feeling it's just my body's way of dealing with the newness of having missing teeth back there. Thanks for the info, guys!
posted by scarykarrey at 12:14 PM on March 3, 2009