Ear blocked, vertigo, help me stand back up!

November 26, 2014 1:05 PM

YANMD (but maybe you can help me find a D?) A blocked ear has turned into super-vertigo, and ain't nobody got time for that. Advice and recommendations needed for the immediate and near-future term, please!

I've had a blocked ear for a day or so; initially I blamed it on a too-loud concert, and was just waiting for it to pass. This afternoon, though, it felt like the blockage got more annoying, and now it has been joined by some serious vertigo--I felt dizzy in my chair, got up to go lie down in the bedroom, and fell over just trying to walk there.

Other details:
-I find that the spinny feeling persists even when I'm lying down, except when lying down ON the blocked ear side, in which case it improves significantly (though doesn't disappear completely).
-The hearing in the blocked ear is pretty reduced but not particularly "ringing".

What I have done:
-taken an antihistamine
-consumed lots of water
-lay down

Things I have not done but could do:
-any sort of "inner ear" maneuver or vertigo treatment
-taken my temperature

What else should I do in the immediate term?

In the near future term: I don't have a regular doc or an ENT, so if anyone can recommend a good one in Chicago I'd be open to those recs. Is this something I could (or should) get looked at at a Minute Clinic kind of thing?

(Really hoping it just passes, as I am supposed to travel over the holiday and cannot imagine getting on a bus right now...)

posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese to Health & Fitness (23 answers total)

My mom's physical therapist did the Eply Maneuver on her. Worked like a charm. YMMV since you have a blocked ear, but it's worth a try.

http://youtu.be/pa6t-Bpg494

Here's a YouTube video showing how it's done. It is helpful to have a non dizzy person to help.
posted by OkTwigs at 1:09 PM on November 26, 2014

Did you take an antihistamine (e.g., Benadryl) or a decongestant (Sudafed)? The former won't help; you need the real Sudafed, the kind you have to show ID for. A warm compress or heating pad on the blocked ear might help also.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:10 PM on November 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Add Mucinex/guaifenesin to help thin and drain whatever congestion may be contributing.
posted by quince at 1:16 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is urgent care territory IMO/IME.
posted by Hermione Granger at 1:17 PM on November 26, 2014 [2 favorites]

The best ENT on the planet is Dr Stephen Charous. I will fly to Chicago for my next sinus surgery, because he's that good. My current ENT in Los Angeles almost wept when he saw the craftsmanship of my sinuses. The difference between my first and second sinus surgery recoveries was indescribable.

I literally just spent two weeks in a dark, quiet room because of a horrible vertigo bout. It was allergy/sinus related. On a whim of desperation, I bought some crazy thing on Amazon called Vertasil - even shipped it same day. I'll be damned but I was about 65% better the next day (though I took 2/2x day). Crazy better.

My last rec for you is to go see David Kato at Lincoln Square Acupuncture. He is fantastic (don't tell him I said so, it'll go to his head). I called him last week and he pointed me in the direction of Chinese herbs.

As is likely clear, I'm practically a professional in the sinus arts. DM if you have questions.
posted by crankyrogalsky at 1:19 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

First - DO NOT USE Q-TIPS or stick anything else in your ear.

They will irrigate your ear at an urgent care, but you can try it at home first.

Put a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in the offending ear, and lay on your side with that ear up for ten minutes or so. You should feel it fizzing. Stand over the sink and cock your head to the side. Fill a water bottle with warm water. Do. Not. Use. Cold. Water. The temperature you use to wash your hands or take a shower is fine. Pour it in your ear. Tilt your head to drain it out. You may have to do this what feels like an absurd number of times. But this is exactly what they will do in the urgent care, except they will use a syringe (no needle). They may also give you meclizine for vertigo (which works!).

On preview: jesus, don't try acupuncture. This is a common problem with a known solution.
posted by desjardins at 1:23 PM on November 26, 2014 [4 favorites]

Seconding ear irrigation. They sell ear syringes at the drugstore; they often don't hold much water but have tips that make it easier to get the water into your ear. Doing this maybe ten times will clear out earwax if that's the problem and either way will change the pressure in your ear and possibly give you relief.

I was given a week of steroids for the same problem, if you want to go to urgent care.
posted by metasarah at 1:36 PM on November 26, 2014

I have Meniere's Disease. You can google that.
I have Antivert (meclizine) which is used for the vertigo. The vertigo can be bad enough to
make me fall down in the direction of the affected ear.
Once when I ran out of my meds, I used Dramamine. It worked almost as well.
posted by donaken at 1:43 PM on November 26, 2014

Seconding the Epley maneuver, which is easy to do and is worth a shot. But just in case, be prepared to projectile vomit / dry heave for a few minutes, possibly faster than you can make it to a sink or toilet. The youtube videos don't tell you that part. My doctor told me he's been sprayed many times. And even if it does work it may take several attempts to figure out which direction to rotate and then to fix the vertigo.
posted by wps98 at 1:50 PM on November 26, 2014

Have you tried taking a nice hot bath? That has helped me in the past with sinus blockages. It's worth a shot, especially if you haven't taken your usual shower or whatever today.
posted by oceanjesse at 1:54 PM on November 26, 2014

(I used meclizine for the first week of my vertigo bout and it didn't help at all. That vertisil wonder drug helped in one night.)
posted by crankyrogalsky at 2:05 PM on November 26, 2014

If you have no experience with irrigating your ears, you can buy a kit at any pharmacy for softening the wax and irrigating your ears. They come with a large-ish bulb syringe, some drops to put in the ear beforehand, maybe something else or maybe that's all. It's been a few years. And they have instructions.

I will recommend using warm water, not tepid. It should not be hot and it should not be cold. Do the baby-bottle thing and test the water temp with your wrist. If it is uncomfortably hot or cold for your wrist, you sure as hell do not want it in your ear.

If you have someone who can help walk you through it in person or after you have a bit of experience, it is no problem to irrigate your own ears. But with zero experience, it might be better to spend a few bucks on a kit and follow the directions included.
posted by Michele in California at 2:11 PM on November 26, 2014

Maybe a prescription of scoplamine would help I've been prescribed it for vertigo in the past. It comes in a patch you wear, it is also used on cruise ships for motion sickness. But DO NOT get it in your eyes. It dilates them for a long time.
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:29 PM on November 26, 2014

My chiropractor cleared a two week long blocked ear with a manipulation of my neck, it was the weirdest thing. If you see someone regularly, might be worth a shot.
posted by Youremyworld at 2:38 PM on November 26, 2014

(IANYAudiologist)Change in hearing, with vertigo? Usually a good idea to get medically assessed if possible (sooner the better), especially since symptoms seem to be progressing.

Ear irrigation helps when wax is in your ear causing the problems, but can be very uncomfortable/bad idea if you have an ear infection (in the canal or middle ear or inner ear). And wax generally won't give you vertigo...

Epley maneuvers help with BPPV. BPPV does not usually also present with a change in hearing, and the dizziness is usually provoked by movement.
posted by ghost phoneme at 2:52 PM on November 26, 2014 [3 favorites]

Small doses of Ativan can also help with vertigo. But go to urgent care...they may have other things to try.
posted by xingcat at 2:52 PM on November 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

Never let a chiropractor manipulate your neck. Neck manipulation can cause a stroke. I'm not sure what is the right thing to do for this, but neck manipulation is not it.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:55 PM on November 26, 2014 [6 favorites]

I had vertigo earlier this year, most likely caused by a viral inner ear infection. I could not move without throwing up, so I spent all day in bed drinking Gatorade and called the home visiting doctor service. The doctor came at about three am and gave me some sort of injection in the bum cheek, and prescribed prochlorperazine maleate tablets, which I took a few times a day for the following few days.

I put my face over a steaming bowl of water and Vicks vaporub, which seemed to help a bit too, but it might have been just placebo effect.

A diagnosis from a doctor is definitely a good idea because they will be able to hopefully work out what will help you. Maybe you have a bacterial infection and antibiotics will help, maybe it's a viral thing and you'll just have to wait it out, maybe it's something else?

I hope you feel better soon. Vertigo sucks.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 5:45 PM on November 26, 2014

Oh and in terms of manipulation and blockages etc: I wouldn't go to a chiropractor for that, but I would consider a well-trained osteopath. I used to go to an osteo regularly for my knee and I had a cold once when I was there. My osteo did some tapping on my forehead and gave me a gentle neck massage, focusing on a specific spot, and it cleared my sinuses and made me feel so much better.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 5:49 PM on November 26, 2014

Just mentioning that you can get Meclizine over the counter, I get it as some generic Travel Sickness medication. I find it does help my vertigo (though not completely) so it might be worth a try, it might help until you can see a doctor. And yes definitely be seen by a medical professional sooner rather than later.
posted by kassila at 6:49 PM on November 26, 2014

Minute Clinic can do the ear irrigation. I had the same issue/symptoms and I went there first because I was traveling. Turns out it was really badly blocked and had to go to my regular doctor anyway. They did more irrigation and finally cleared it out.
posted by jshort at 6:53 PM on November 26, 2014

Oh god, vertigo. I would say that vertigo is the worst physical thing I've ever experienced, but I recently had EMG, so I guess it's number two now.

Take some dramamine and go to urgent care or a clinic. They will seriously be able to help you substantially if not completely pretty quickly. My vertigo wasn't caused by a blockage--it was benign positional vertigo and took 6 weeks to recover from because the Epley didn't work. Don't suffer any longer than you have to. It's like, the worst.
posted by xyzzy at 10:25 PM on November 26, 2014

IANYD and I don't know what's going on with your ear because I cannot examine you. However, I can tell you these things in general about blocked ears:

I frequently see people who have vertigo due to wax (cerumen impaction) up against their eardrum. This seems to often be caused by people using Q tips in their ear. Public service announcement - never use Q tips in your ear. Having vertigo due to wax up against your eardrum is a different problem than benign positional vertigo (BPV), which is vertigo caused by the 'otoliths' (tiny stones inside your inner ear) getting out of place.

The Epley maneuver (which basically rotates your head in a structured way) works in BPV because it puts the out of place otoliths back into place. If you have wax blocking your ear, the Epley maneuver should not do anything for you (and might be quite uncomfortable to try as it will probably bring on the vertigo), because the wax isn't going to move. Things like acupuncture and chiropractic manipulation may be put forward for vertigo for other reasons, but even if they were thought to work when used for those reasons - and there is no evidence that they do work - it is hard to imagine how they could work for this purpose. Antihistamines and decongestants do not do anything to ear wax.

If wax is the problem, getting the wax out should fix the problem. Wax can be removed in an urgent care clinic by irrigation, but it can also be removed at home. There are over the counter drops mentioned above which can be put in the ear and left to sit for a few minutes to soften up the hard wax, and then you can tilt your head the other way to let the debris run out of the ear. If you have a lot of wax built up it can take several rounds of this to get it all out. Sometimes you really may need irrigation because the wax is so hardened this technique isn't very effective on it. I don't think most people have tools good enough at home to irrigate their ears very effectively, so I've never recommended that, but letting warm water run into the ears in a shower could help get out minor wax buildup.

There is no way for us to know for sure that your ear is blocked because of wax, if you just have reduced hearing on one side, there are other reasons that can happen other than being blocked by wax - someone needs to look in your ear to advise you better.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 12:01 AM on November 27, 2014 [2 favorites]