A bit of a tortured case history, but will be interested in hearing input from anyone who has had similar problems or anyone with a medical background who might be able to shine some light on this.
Initial problem was water being trapped in my left ear after diving for a period of days, resulting in reduced hearing etc. This was getting annoying as I was diving every few days anyway, so was basically deaf in my left ear continuously.
Decided to see my GP who inspected the ear canal and ear drum. He suspected a possible perforation in the ear drum so referred me to an ENT specialist.
The ENT specialist decided that ear drum was ok but had signs of fungal infection and so sucked out the ear canal and prescribed some anti-fungal/anti-bacterial drops, tradename was Kenacomb, which is a mix of triamcinolone acetonide, neomycin as sulphate, gramicidin & nystatin.
After a couple of days use (with no diving) the ear drops themselves become trapped in the ear canal and I started getting development of tinnitus. Checking up on the side effects of Kenacomb I noticed that tinnitus is one and that usage should be stopped so went back to GP who decided to syringe out the ear to remove the coagulated ear drops. Fine, but still has tinnitus issues.
After a couple of weeks, the tinnitus was still present. I got a referral to a second ENT specialist. Prior to going I had an audiogram and a tympanogram. Audiogram results were normal, typmanogram showed the left ear drum was "more stiff" than the right. The specialist noticed that the there was a layer of skin seperated from the left ear drum, forming a kind of false ear drum. After that, the tympanogram was repeated and left and right ears were the same and well in the normal range.
Unfortunately, several weeks on I still have tinnitus in the left ear. I only notice it when things are quiet and there is no loss of hearing, as supported by the audiogram. I've been diving and am no longer getting water trapped, so there's at least been some progress! But I've been dry the last couple of weeks over the holiday period as I've been away from home.
I'm heading home next week and want to get to the bottom of this so am going to head back to the ENT specialist and try and work out what is going on. I have a feeling that maybe I'm just blaming the tinnitus on the Kenacomb and infact there's probably something more systemic going on - possibly damage to the TMJ relating in muscular strain?
Anyone else got any thoughts on this? Possible causes etc. Or had similar problems?
Initial problem was water being trapped in my left ear after diving for a period of days, resulting in reduced hearing etc. This was getting annoying as I was diving every few days anyway, so was basically deaf in my left ear continuously.
Decided to see my GP who inspected the ear canal and ear drum. He suspected a possible perforation in the ear drum so referred me to an ENT specialist.
The ENT specialist decided that ear drum was ok but had signs of fungal infection and so sucked out the ear canal and prescribed some anti-fungal/anti-bacterial drops, tradename was Kenacomb, which is a mix of triamcinolone acetonide, neomycin as sulphate, gramicidin & nystatin.
After a couple of days use (with no diving) the ear drops themselves become trapped in the ear canal and I started getting development of tinnitus. Checking up on the side effects of Kenacomb I noticed that tinnitus is one and that usage should be stopped so went back to GP who decided to syringe out the ear to remove the coagulated ear drops. Fine, but still has tinnitus issues.
After a couple of weeks, the tinnitus was still present. I got a referral to a second ENT specialist. Prior to going I had an audiogram and a tympanogram. Audiogram results were normal, typmanogram showed the left ear drum was "more stiff" than the right. The specialist noticed that the there was a layer of skin seperated from the left ear drum, forming a kind of false ear drum. After that, the tympanogram was repeated and left and right ears were the same and well in the normal range.
Unfortunately, several weeks on I still have tinnitus in the left ear. I only notice it when things are quiet and there is no loss of hearing, as supported by the audiogram. I've been diving and am no longer getting water trapped, so there's at least been some progress! But I've been dry the last couple of weeks over the holiday period as I've been away from home.
I'm heading home next week and want to get to the bottom of this so am going to head back to the ENT specialist and try and work out what is going on. I have a feeling that maybe I'm just blaming the tinnitus on the Kenacomb and infact there's probably something more systemic going on - possibly damage to the TMJ relating in muscular strain?
Anyone else got any thoughts on this? Possible causes etc. Or had similar problems?
