Lack of brains does not explain this echo in my head.

April 14, 2008 3:29 PM

My left ear seems to be declaring war. A little bit of grossness inside. Have you experienced this?

Not seeking medical advice; I'm planning to see my doctor either tomorrow morning or the next day (the weirdness just happened today, they're closed, and don't schedule appts after hours). I'm just wondering if this is familiar to anyone out there.

Here's the background: I've been sick for nine days now with a combination of tonsillitis (with huge tonsil swelling, followed by reduced swelling with little white patches), fever, sinus congestion, coughing, and finally severe pain in both ears as I suspect things work their way out of my system. No appetite, and some nausea that's probably just from living mostly on DayQuil and cough drops and chamomile tea. Bleh. But anyway...

Both ears got that clogged, kind of numb feeling, followed by a day or so of intense pain for each, and showed then crystallizing fluidy discharge (no blood or anything). The right ear, which has constant rushing tinnitus anyway, has reclogged and hears normal, albeit muffled sounds, but the left ear, although clear now, hears what sounds like a higher register of sound, accompanied with a very slight delay. For example, when my cat meows, I hear a faint adult feline meow with my right ear, and a kitten with my left ear. When I whistle or sing a note, I hear a faint but jarring chord. Is this normal ruptured eardrum (I suspect I've had that happen before, but I've never had this particular effect) behavior, or do you recognize from personal experience something else going on here? And if you've experienced it, how long did it take for it to go away?

posted by notquitemaryann to health & fitness (12 comments total)

When my eardrum ruptured, I was pretty much deaf in that ear until it healed. Did the pain disappear immediately? The point of an eardrum rupturing is something you're likely to remember-the actual moment isn't that bad, but the hour leading up to it is excruciating.
posted by dinty_moore at 3:47 PM on April 14, 2008

Unfortunately, I took a lot of Aleve and went to sleep...pain was almost gone after I woke, though, yeah. Same with the right ear two days ago. What's weirding me out is that Beethoven is currently sounding like Alban Berg, and that Alban Berg sounds pretty awesome.
posted by notquitemaryann at 4:14 PM on April 14, 2008

Sounds like an inner-ear infection followed by a ruptured ear drum. Generally, an inner-ear infection (which can be pretty common after a head-cold) results in muffled hearing, but you shouldn't get drainage unless the eardrum did indeed rupture. Of course, if your eardrum ruptured it will affect your hear.

I had an inner-ear infection during the Christmas break. It hurt like hell (the pain came on suddenly, too) until I got antibiotics. It took about a month for my hearing to return. My eardrum didn't rupture though.

Funnily enough, the doctor wanted to rupture my eardrum. I was in Japan and had to return home by air. The doctor was concerned that the change in air pressure would cause me excruciating pain, so he suggested draining the ear by pricking the ear drum.

I refused, and survived the plane flight.

Curiously, the only thing the Japanese doctor (a visiting nose-ears-and-throat specialist from the teaching university) did that helped my condition was when they stuck a metal wand up my nose into my sinus cavity and blew in air. A great rush of water gushed out my nose (actually, it was a trickle), and my hearing improved slightly.

However, it hurt like hell.

"Hmmmm, this is funny," said the specialist doctor as he tried to jam the thin metal wand up my nose. "It's quite a tight fit."

It hurt like hell as the tip of the nozzle scraped along the delicate tissue of my nose. I made small grunting sounds because of the pain, but managed to control myself.

I had noticed small children (Japanese clinics, at least in the boonies, have little or no privacy) endured the treatment stoically. How were they able to do it?

I went back to the clinic. The regular doctor looked at me again. He suggested shoving the nozzle up my nose again, but I said "no" and told him what happened with the specialist.

The doctor laughed - he had studied at Cornell - and said that sine Japanese noses are much more "flat" that Western noses, the sinus cavities are wider - it's easier to shove things up them. He grinned as he imagined the specialist trying to ram the slender metal wand up my nose, into my sinus cavity.

"It seems like it would hurt," he said.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:18 PM on April 14, 2008 [2 favorites]

Textbook middle ear infection. (IANAD, yadda yadda, but I've had a shitload of middle ear infections.) Not the inner ear - that won't result in drainage, since it's where the cochlea and company are; the middle ear is the bit behind the ear drum that's involved in the kind of thing you're describing. And yes, a rupture - sometimes there's very little blood, not enough to notice.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 4:23 PM on April 14, 2008

I've had this happen many, many times before. You probably won't recover your hearing for many months and the ear that had the crystalline discharge will probably never hear like it did in the past. The strange sounds will go away in a 3-5 weeks.

If you've never been prone to ear infections in the past, you'll likely get one now every time you have the flu or other sinus-related infection. I also suggest you get used to wearing ear muffs in extreme cold or wind. Something about having your eardrum punctured from the inside out, I can't be in a windy place for more than 45 minutes or so without coming away with a brand-new ear infection.
posted by fiercekitten at 4:37 PM on April 14, 2008

I can't be in a windy place for more than 45 minutes or so without coming away with a brand-new ear infection.

I think there is some debate as to whether or not ear infections are caused by virus or by bacteria. The end result is that the inner ear canal becomes inflamed. When the inflammation goes down the tissue contracts, causing a vacuum. The vacuum draws out liquid from the surrounding tissue into the inner ear. This alone is probably enough to cause hearing problems, but I guess the warm liquid also provides a nice place for bacteria and viruses to multiply, too, paving the way for more ear infections.

I think...
posted by KokuRyu at 4:49 PM on April 14, 2008

IMHO, ditto middle-ear infection which can be serious if you don't get it treated, not to mention incredibly painful - Like a spike in your head. I commonly ask for Cipro drops in times like this - I get them many many times a year like a child does because I get my colds in my ears. My inside ear tissue swells and closes up and sometimes I have to get them vacuumed out. Once in a while I have to go to a referred physician if my own doctor isn't in and they attempt to give me a sulfur-based medication which never works on me. Sometimes you get a wick inserted into your ear to help whatever drops they administer to sink in. It’s bearable only for about a day then you have to have someone remove the wick with tweezers.

Go to the doctor, if it’s an ear infection it won’t just clear up on its own and can end up serious. After a doctor’s visit, the pain should leave by the next day. If it doesn’t, contact your doctor again, don’t wait. IANAD :)
posted by eatdonuts at 4:54 PM on April 14, 2008

Not sure which problem you might be suffering from but if you are up for some experimentation you might try:

A. Netti Pot
B. Hydrogen Peroxide in the ear. Now this might hurt like all hell and then again it might give you some relief if the ear drum is not busted.

I would probably try the netti pot first, it might give you some relief. As for the hydrogen peroxide- I would wait until you see the doc first. I don't want your head to explode.
posted by bkeene12 at 7:32 PM on April 14, 2008

I'd like to relate two stories from my father:

1. He had an infection in his left ear... he saw a doctor, the doctor checked his left ear, then went to check his right ear without removing the tip used in the infected ear. My father corrected him and that was that.

2. He went back a week later to his regular doctor, since the medication wasn't doing much. The doctor checked his right ear first, when my father told him it was his left ear he said "I know, but I like to see what the healthy one is like first." Also, since the right ear is healthy, there's no real risk of spreading the infection when he used the same tip on the left ear.
posted by furtive at 8:30 PM on April 14, 2008

Hydrogen Peroxide in the ear.

Yeah, if you're going to the doctor tomorrow, don't do this tonight. If your ear drum is ruptured, it's kind of going to feel like pouring acid into your brain.

What you're describing sounds a lot like a middle ear infection with a slightly ruptured ear drum. It might take a little while, but once the infection is gone, you'll likely heal up and be fine.

Get well soon!
posted by the jam at 8:57 PM on April 14, 2008

Probably a bit late, but for future reference: don't stick any liquids into a recently ruptured ear unless you've spoken to your doctor. Water and the like can cause (or worsen) an infection, and hydrogen peroxide will hurt horribly if it gets past your eardrum. That, and it could cause damage. Unless you *know* your eardrum is intact, don't do it.

Slightly paranoid? Maybe. But it hurts like hell if the hole is large enough.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 9:05 AM on April 15, 2008

Just following up to say: yep, turned out to be nice holes in both ears. The hearing weirdness/loss is continuing to bum me out, but I'm hopeful that it'll pass.

Thanks so much for the answers! They helped relieve my fears a bit- part of the reason I asked is because my doctor has been rather dismissive (to the point of brusqueness) of the tinnitus in the past, and I wanted some reassurance that I doubted she'd give. As it turned out, she couldn't see me for several days and I quickly got checked out and medicated up in the ER by a very understanding ENT specialist.
posted by notquitemaryann at 4:26 PM on April 17, 2008