Serous Otitis Media -- Causing a lot of ear infections

[Fogest]

Hello,

For the past month I kept getting ear infections a few days after I had just been diving. I was trying ear drops and it just was not going away, and would only naturally go away with time, until the next time I went diving.

So finally after being a lot of pain this past week I went to the doctor and he told me it looks like I have serous otitis media, and says that he thinks it may be caused by not equalizing properly while diving. I am not sure however if this is true as I went to a depth of 108ft last weekend and experienced no pain or anything from improper equalization, and was feeling the distinct subtle pop every time I'd equalize. I also get similar problems when my average depth on a dive is 20ft.

Not to mention that I believe I have had this problem since before I started diving. I only started diving about a month ago, however at least 4-5 months prior I had been to the doctors as I was having discomfort in my one ear when I laid down. Whenever I would lay down flat to go to bed my right ear would have some discomfort/light pain. I was told that there was nothing wrong with my ear, however now with this ear pain I have again it is a lot worse when lying down. So it seems like this is related to the same thing.

Is there any kind of solution for this kind of problem? I was told to try different methods of equalizing, which I will give a try, but I feel like it is more than that.

Should I call DAN and get a medical opinion of someone experienced with diving?

 

[KevinNM]

Yes, you should ask DAN for a suggested ENT in your vicinity if none of the experts here have any better ideas.

 

[Fogest]

Yes, you should ask DAN for a suggested ENT in your vicinity if none of the experts here have any better ideas.

Well I have antibiotics to clear up this current ear infection I have that I will be using for 10 days, but then if I continue to get ear infections in the future despite trying different methods of equalizing then he said I will need to meet with him again. I assume at that point he will have a look and see if the fluid is still there and then I bet he will refer me to an ENT.

My only real concern here is that I feel like this is not actually because of the diving. Since I was already getting a discomfort when I'd lay down and it felt like fluid was in my ear I feel like I already had an existing issue prior to diving. So I think his theory of the pressure causing blood vessels to burst in my ears may be incorrect. I think the ear infections have started to occur because of course the water I am diving in has bacteria and with the fluid in my ears it makes it an easy location to get an ear infection.

 

[fmerkel]

Otitis. ....media - middle ear. Ear drops will not hurt, but neither will they help.
I would take the position right now until proven otherwise that you are not clearing properly. I had a friend, new diver insisted he was clearing properly. He wasn't, and had similar problems.

You can do this improperly up to 3x in the first 10 feet of depth, get it (mostly) right the next 100 feet and have those consequences.

 

[Fogest]

Otitis. ....media - middle ear. Ear drops will not hurt, but neither will they help.
I would take the position right now until proven otherwise that you are not clearing properly. I had a friend, new diver insisted he was clearing properly. He wasn't, and had similar problems.

You can do this improperly up to 3x in the first 10 feet of depth, get it (mostly) right the next 100 feet and have those consequences.

Yeah my doctor mentioned a similar thing about the ear drops. He said that they won't really have any effect on the infection because of where the infection is, which is why for this he gave me antibiotics, but obviously he does not want to be giving me these to take on a regular basis for this.

It is definitely possible that I am messing up the equalizing, but so far I have 17 dives and after each set of dives I get the ear infection occurring 1-3 days after. I guess it is possible that I am messing up every single dive trip, but because of my prior ear troubles before I even got into scuba diving it makes me wonder whether or not this is the cause of the fluid, or if it is only the water that is causing the ear infections, but not actually the fluid issue.

I'll try different equalizing methods, however I have really only had success in the past doing the valsalva method, and other ones I had troubles performing underwater.

 

[fmerkel]

Different methods will not help if your basic technique AND timing are not appropriate.

You don't get an infection immediately. You get fluid in your ears from poor technique, you ALWAYS ALREADY have bacteria in your throat which seeds this fluid via the Eustachian canal and get the infection. I seriously doubt it has anything to do with the water.

I strongly recommend you stop diving until you sort this out. You can permanently mess up your ears.

 

[fmerkel]

Edmond Kay and ear clearing;
Doc's Diving Medicine Home Page

Watch the whole video. It's long but worth it.
Then read the article below that on Middle Ear Barotrauma

 

[doctormike]

Lots of misconceptions about ears and diving. Here is my sticky about all of this, I hope that it is helpful.

Ear disease is very frequently misdiagnosed by doctors who are not ENT docs or pediatricians. Your doctor may be great, I don't mean to sound snotty (hah!). However there should be no confusion between middle ear barotrauma leading to serous otitis media (for which antibiotics should never be used), acute otitis media with pus in the middle ear (which is extremely uncommon in adults, even in divers), and otitis externa ("swimmer's ear", which may require microscopic cleaning of the ear in addition to drops).

Read the sticky and feel free to ask specific questions.

 

[fmerkel]

Excellent sticky doctormike!

 

[doctormike]

Excellent sticky doctormike!

Glad you like it! Feel free to PM me if you have questions, etc...