Johnboy70_99
Contributor
I'm looking for help here with my ear problems.
I think I have had problems equalizing in my left ear. I went through my first 70 dives with no major issues. I did notice that frequently after several dives within a few days my left ear felt full. I dismissed it as normal and continued diving.
At around my 70th dive, I encountered a major issue. I don't remember anything different about the dive, it seemed to be ok. But at one point I remember feeling a rush of water in the left ear, and loud ringing. When I got to the surface I felt dizzy and lost all hearing in that ear. I went to the ER, they said there looked like fluid in the ear, they gave me antibiotics, ant dizzy medication, and antihistamines. The dizziness went away mostly mostly later that day. Most of my hearing returned within a few days, except there is a sharp drop-off around 7k. I also have permanent tinnitus and some hypercuasis. I saw several ENTs over the next few months. One took a ct scan of the ear and everything looks normal. They suspected some sort of barotrauma had occurred. They cleared me to dive again.
I started diving again, shallow at first, then deeper. I try to clear my ears on almost every breath, using freznel, never valseuva which I think caused the initial issue.
Doing that for 10 dives or so of the course of a week, i had absolutely no problem with fullness or anything after I dove. My ears felt perfect, i was so excited I could dive again! But my right ear always seemed to clear easily, my left maybe was not.
On the next dive, we dove to 94 feet. Upon surfacing I heard a loud ringing, and distortion of loud noises. And I felt a little dizzy. I skipped diving the next day, amd the symptoms went away. I did another 8 dives or so over the next week and everything went fine.
Then it happened again. I got the dizziness and noise.
I feel like if I am really really careful equalizing, everything is ok. But my ear seems really sensitive to pressure changes.
I am on flonaise for 2 weeks before and during my dive trips. I also take afrin occasionally. They both seem to help. I also tried docs vented proplugs which made my ears warmer and lessened bubble noise, which was nice, but didn't really seem to help with my ear issue.
I realize that the safe thing to do is stop diving. I can go that route, but I really enjoy diving and would love to find a way to be able to equalize safely on every dive so that my "bad" left ear would feel as good as my "good" right ear that has never had a single problem. At the moment I am not enjoying diving because I am hyper focused on equalization and worried about permanently damaging my ears.
Any suggestions? DAN could not find an ent that is really familiar with diving that is near me (Boston MA)
I think I have had problems equalizing in my left ear. I went through my first 70 dives with no major issues. I did notice that frequently after several dives within a few days my left ear felt full. I dismissed it as normal and continued diving.
At around my 70th dive, I encountered a major issue. I don't remember anything different about the dive, it seemed to be ok. But at one point I remember feeling a rush of water in the left ear, and loud ringing. When I got to the surface I felt dizzy and lost all hearing in that ear. I went to the ER, they said there looked like fluid in the ear, they gave me antibiotics, ant dizzy medication, and antihistamines. The dizziness went away mostly mostly later that day. Most of my hearing returned within a few days, except there is a sharp drop-off around 7k. I also have permanent tinnitus and some hypercuasis. I saw several ENTs over the next few months. One took a ct scan of the ear and everything looks normal. They suspected some sort of barotrauma had occurred. They cleared me to dive again.
I started diving again, shallow at first, then deeper. I try to clear my ears on almost every breath, using freznel, never valseuva which I think caused the initial issue.
Doing that for 10 dives or so of the course of a week, i had absolutely no problem with fullness or anything after I dove. My ears felt perfect, i was so excited I could dive again! But my right ear always seemed to clear easily, my left maybe was not.
On the next dive, we dove to 94 feet. Upon surfacing I heard a loud ringing, and distortion of loud noises. And I felt a little dizzy. I skipped diving the next day, amd the symptoms went away. I did another 8 dives or so over the next week and everything went fine.
Then it happened again. I got the dizziness and noise.
I feel like if I am really really careful equalizing, everything is ok. But my ear seems really sensitive to pressure changes.
I am on flonaise for 2 weeks before and during my dive trips. I also take afrin occasionally. They both seem to help. I also tried docs vented proplugs which made my ears warmer and lessened bubble noise, which was nice, but didn't really seem to help with my ear issue.
I realize that the safe thing to do is stop diving. I can go that route, but I really enjoy diving and would love to find a way to be able to equalize safely on every dive so that my "bad" left ear would feel as good as my "good" right ear that has never had a single problem. At the moment I am not enjoying diving because I am hyper focused on equalization and worried about permanently damaging my ears.
Any suggestions? DAN could not find an ent that is really familiar with diving that is near me (Boston MA)
