Ear incident

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ZenSquirrel

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Austin, TX
We were diving on Wednesday and my buddy complained that she accidently cleared too hard and felt warm fluid in her ear. She said that she was not trying to force a clear but that she just accidently blew harder than she usually does.

Upon surfacing she made me check her ear 4 times for blood and her hearing was fine. No problems what so ever the next day.

The water we were diving in was 80F. Our guess was that she had an air bubble trapped in her ear canal and the hard clear pushed it out and let the warm water in. Is there anything else that could have happened? I would assume that if something ruptured and fluid transfered that there would be hearing loss or vertigo.

This is mostly a point of curiorsity because the only damage done was to my buddy's calm dive.
 
I would think that if you ruptured something in your ear while in water that is 80F, you'd feel a cold sensation in your ear, not warm....

But, it has never happened to me, and I'm not a doc.
 
I get that same feeling sometimes, warm water getting into my ear after I equalize... sometimes I think it is possible that you move some wax in your ear and the water already in your ear and so already "warm" goes in a little further into your canal cos you moved some wax that was blocking the water out before.

If nothing hurts and everything else seems fine. Don't worry about it. Ears are weird things. I've heard some bad stories and you have to be careful with them. If in any doubt about your ears get them looked at by a doctor.

I had to have mine syringed once to get a load of wax out cos they would not equalize!

Mine sometimes wont equalize on a second dive for the first 10 mins and I get stuck on the surface for a while then all of sudden they are fine and sometimes they even sqeak and squelch a bit when I equlaize them. But I never push too hard to equalize them or try to go down to far so that they hurt.

If you burst and eardrum or did something equally as bad, you'd know it I think. It would be really painfull (at least at first).

Hope this helps.
 
We dove again last night. She has not complained about any pain or problems hearing. After the dive she said that it was weird because she did not feel like the right ear needed to be equalized. Also after the dive she expected to have some water in her ears and she did in the left ear but not in the right.

Any new ideas?
 
Like I said - ears are weird!

I can only talk from experience.

Sounds like the left ear may be harder to equalize than the right - can make it feel like you "need" to equalize more with your left ear

This can be due to different sized eustachian tubes - one may be tighter than thet other.

Do you mean water "trapped" in the ear.

A waxy left ear can mean water gets trapped in there... which can make it feel like it is harder to equalise that ear also.

If it becomes a problem - get the ears checked by a doctor for wax.
 
hey there- no official doctor style advice - but I have similar issues whenever I dive. when I started out I thought there was something wrong and went to a specialist- but he saw nothing amiss and just said I was to watch out for ear infections which would be noticeable by loss of hearing after diving which doesn't clear after a couple of days.

Dunno if this is good advice or not- but the warm sensation- and lack of clearing need is exactly what I experienced. The specialist said the wax displacement- as mentioned above- but that was it

happy diving
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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