Breathing and Nausea Question

[BuiltLikeABulldog]

Hi BuiltLikeABulldog,

As I understand your remark, you used get water forced into your inner ear a lot while surfing. For this to occur, both your eardrum and either you oval window or round window would have to be perforated/ruptured. Now that indeed would be some REALLY, REALLY rough surf. This entrance of water would result in crippling pain & vertigo, some partial hearing loss, possibly tinnitus, and likely followed by infection. And of course the introduction of alcohol (the almost exclusive ingredient in Swimmer's Ear drops & similar products, which, BTW, are meant only for use in the outer ear/external auditory canal), would cause tremendous additional pain & likely damage tissues in the middle & inner ear.

Also, it's my understanding that the fluid in the in the labyrinth of the inner ear is endolymph, a material very much different than water.

Perhaps you could clear this up for me? Here's some ear anatomy graphics to aid in the discussion:

http://www.ent-info.nhs.uk/images/diagram%20of%20innermiddleouterear.gif

http://www.riversideonline.com/source/images/slideshow/hdg22_earanatomy.jpg


Thanks,

DocVikingo

I may have misspoken or due to misunderstanding my ENT lol... But during tropical surf or nice winter swells, when I'd eat it pretty bad I'd get water in my ear and it would be there for days. When sitting down in my car or scraping the wax off my board if I moved too quickly I'd feel nauseated like crazy and get vertigo. First time it happened I went to an ENT, he told me my balance was regulated by a small amount of water in my ear. And water from the surf is being shoved into my ear from the rough surf and it's disrupting the balance. He told me to use swimmer's ear (Alcohol I guess) and it will remove the excess water. And once I did that, it took a a day or so and I was fine.
I'm not a physician just repeating what a physician told me about my personal issues!

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Hi Pink,

I'm with TSandM in that this sounds a lot like benign positional vertigo, but am equally puzzled as to why it would only occur after diving unless it's subclinical and is aggravated by pressure changes. Your suggestion of alternobaric vertigo is interesting. ABV typically occurs while the diver is still ascending in the water column, but it may be that you're surfacing with pressure in both of your middle ears and one of them clears before the other following your dive. It's atypical but it would explain your particular symptom set and presentation. Since the vertigo resolves spontaneously over a very short period of time, I don't think that this is inner ear barotrauma or decompression sickness. Your shallow dive profiles allow inner ear DCS to be further ruled out.

I don't think this is related to your breathing, either. If this was CO2 toxicity, you'd be experiencing symptoms during the dive and immediately post-dive rather than on the car ride home. Also, you didn't report a headache, which is pretty much standard issue in CO2 toxicity.

I'd echo what CamG said about your depth changes - go slowly, and be mindful of your ear equalization on both descent and ascent. If descending in a horizontal position allows you to equalize more easily, by all means do it. On ascent, move your jaw around, swallow, or do whatever you need to do to ensure that the air escapes from your middle ears. Also, since this is a consistent problem, an evaluation by an ENT physician would probably be in order.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[DocVikingo]

I may have misspoken or due to misunderstanding my ENT lol... But during tropical surf or nice winter swells, when I'd eat it pretty bad I'd get water in my ear and it would be there for days.

Thanks for the reply, BuiltLikeABulldog, I think the immediately important point for the purposes of this topic is that the water in your ear was in the outer ear/external auditory canal AND NOT in the inner ear proper (See --> http://www.ent-info.nhs.uk/images/di...leouterear.gif & http://www.riversideonline.com/sourc...earanatomy.jpg). These two strutures are not directly connected, but separated by several very critcal membranes (i.e., the eardrum & the round/oval windows).

As for that inner ear "water," here's a description of endolymph --> Endolymph

Regards,

DocVikingo