Water in the Middle Ear After Neti Pot; Louder Tinnitus

I used a neti pot yesterday with a saline solution to clear my sinuses, hoping that the tinnitus would lower. This usually helps. But yesterday I blew too hard and got water up into my left middle ear. If I try to pinch my nose it just hurts, seems like I push the water back into the ear, but nothing comes out.

The tinnitus is now much louder on the left ear and I'm really scared.

My sinuses feel really stuffy, maybe when I get rid of this "cold", the eustachian tube will widen and the water come out?

What should I do?

 

I would go see an ENT in this case and immediately stop equalizing by doing the vaselva maneuvre - that is the most important thing. If there really is water or fluid behind the ear drum/ in the middle ear it might need to be drained.Besides from that in your posts it seems like you are using the neti pot quite often, maybe you're overdoing it a little bit? I would ask the ENT about the safe use of neti pots too, just to make sure you are not harming yourself or damaging your ears with using it more often than recommended.

 

I use the netipot no more than maybe once a month. But I pinched one nostril and blew, which made water shoot up the left eustachian tube. This usually happens, and it helps, but this time it got stuck in the left ear.

I think most of the water in that ear is gone now, but the ringing is still much louder in that ear..

Why should I stop doing the vasalva? My doc said that's smart, so the eustachain tube opens and the water can flow out

 

Okay if your Doctor advised you to do so than that's good. My doctor told me not to perform the valsalva maneuver often because if you are too rough you will damage the eardrum. I remember yonakapin saying that he had the same problem and did the the valsalva maneuver all the time because he felt ear pressure and made his tinnitus worse by repeatedly doing it. If the water is almost gone by now I'm sure your tinnitus will be also be quieter again soon. If you have a cold at the moment it is also normal that the tinnitus seems a lot louder, at least for me
It's always like that.

 

It's something else than just amplified by a cold. It was that initially, which was why I wanted to use the netipot.

I have also read that vasalva can make the eardrum rapture, but can the tinnitus just get permanently worse by doing vasalva maneuvre, when the ear drum is fine? I've never heard that before :S

Here's what an ENT told me...




Can water in middle ear (caused by wrong use of neti pot) make tinnitus serm louder, or have I made actual damage? :-(


Bobby Ghaheri, MD
it can definitely amplify tinnitusDo you think the amplification will end when the water clears from the middle ear?



Do you think the amplification will end when the water clears from the middle ear?


Bobby Ghaheri, MD‏@DrGhaheri
yes, almost always it gets better as water goes away

 

Maybe you could talk to yonakapin about this issue and ask him if his tinnitus has gotten worse because his eardrum was damaged or just because of the valsalva maneuver itself.. I think the difficulty is to know when to stop because the eardrum is in danger or when you're too rough with pushing the air out of the ears..

 

This is how my T started ...

 

Netipot?

 

I read your first post on the forum now.. Scary. I can still feel pressure and some sensation of water in the left ear (24 hours since it happened now), and my sinuses are really congested (like when you have a cold, except I don't feel other symptoms of cold really), so I still have hope it will go down

 

How can tinnitus START from something like that, @Amelia ? Seems so weird. A little water up the ear canal...

 

Eustachian Tube / Palatal Muscle Exercises

. Do not use the Valsalva maneuver which is pinching your nostrils and blowing through your nose. This is the most commonly used technique, but might not be the best one for you. One problem with the Valsalva maneuver is that it doesn't activate muscles that open the eustachian tubes, so it may not work if the tubes are already locked by a pressure differential. It's also easy to blow hard enough to damage something. Instead of using the Valsalva, try one of these:

* The Toynbee Maneuver. With your nostrils pinched, swallow. Swallowing pulls open your eustachian tubes while the movement of your tongue, with your nose closed, compresses air against them.

* The Lowry Technique. A combination of Valsalva and Toynbee: While closing your nostrils, blow and swallow at the same time.

* The Edmonds Technique. While tensing the soft palate (the soft tissue at the back of the roof of your mouth) and throat muscles and pushing the jaw forward and down, do a Valsalva maneuver.

* The Frenzel Maneuver. Close your nostrils, and close the back of your throat as if straining to lift a weight. Then make the sound of the letter "K." This forces the back of your tongue upward, compressing air against the openings of your eustachian tubes.

* Voluntary Tubal Opening. Tense the muscles of the soft palate and the throat while pushing your jaw forward and down as if starting to yawn. These muscles pull the eustachian tubes open. This requires a lot of practice, but some people can learn to control those muscles and hold their tubes open for continuous equalization.

Be Well,
Joseph Schames DMD

 

No stranger than T starting out of nowhere. Totally possible in my case.
I was actually using a neilmed nasal wash, ears started ringing as soon as I'd finished. I'm putting 2 and 2 together here, but yeah, that's what started it for me.

 

I thought Eustachian Tube Dysfunction was the cause of my T for the first 4 months or so, postponed trying to get used to it and really made the whole preocess of accepting it really hard when I realized it was for real...

Anyways, I think I had some of that as well. Maybe I still do to some degree? Shouldn't water clear from the middle ear pretty fast?

I have no problem equalising the pressure in my ears when yawning etc, so I don't think I have ETD now that I think about it..

 

oh my god it's so much louder and in a completely different way then it has been before... i've fucked up so bad

 

how about this stuff or similar http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk/swim-ear-drops/prd-hrt gets rid of water in the ear and having tried neti pots i believe they are bad news if you do have some form of etd ,making it worse

 

Yeah, I got myself into quite the jam with that! Definitely advise against the valsalva maneuver now.

Hope it calms down for you Erlend! If you really think you may have damaged something try to convince your GP/ENT to hook you up with some oral prednisone.

 

Try not to stress out too much - I've googled countless hours and haven't found anyone else getting T through a nasal wash/neti pot.

Perhaps I'm just special

 

I still have fullness in that ear, so I think there is still water trapped. Maybe I should just wait and see how the volume is after the fullnes/water is gone?

Did vasalva make you ringing permanently louder?

 

It's like 3x louder I hope it goes down so bad holy shit

 

Are you that it's water in there? I wouldn't wait, go to an ENT and get it checked out asap just in case - if you can, convince your ENT/GP to get you on a course of short term, high dose oral presdnisone. It's a bit of a stretch but if you've caused damage through barotrauma (not saying you did, though) it will help you tremendously, but time is very important. At least just go to the ENT, don't wait.

Anyway, yeah it did - I think I went over what happened in another thread but basically I got used to doing the valsalva all the time because my left ear always felt stuffy - then one day I did it one too many times and caused a lot of my pain in my left ear, followed by a huge increase in tinnitus in my left ear. This lasted 6 or 7 hours, calmed down and I thought everything was all good. Decided it would be a good idea to head to a huge rave I'd been waiting half a year for 2 days later (with ear plugs) and then I think things got worse from then. I think it was more the combination of the two events in such a short frame of time that did it than just the valsalva - but it sure didn't help. I should have been smart from the beginning and been more careful, but sh*t happens.

 

If I get it tomorrow, that will be ~40 hours. Is that too long for it to be worth it?

 

It feels really full, when I sometimes feel it, i think.

 

Nope, should be good - I think the optimal time frame is 72 hours. But I've read a couple studies that talk about the benefits of prednisone treatment even up to around 3ish weeks after trauma.

 

I suppose smoking cigaeettes would be stupid now too?

 

Any better this morning?

 

Not really

 

You have temporay conductive hearing loss which means your T is amplified because your hearing is impaired. The fluid is preventing the eardrum to vibrate and you have nothing really to drown the T sound out. After it drains it will get better.. I had a similar problem flying with a cold and had both ears full during the holidays. It sucked and the T was loud. I am better now (chew a lot of gum) but my T is a bit louder than before I went on the flight but it also takes ears a long time to heal. It is a marathon.

 

Thanks! My hearing in this ear is indeed dulled, which makes the water in ear hypythesis likely

 

The doctor confirmed water in the middle ear

 

The doctor looked into my ear with his little hammer and said there was fluid there, the ear drum was bulging a little and it was a little red in there.

So now I hope the T goes down again when the fluid drains. Been chewing gum for hours now.

Although all logic this time says it will go away, I can't help but being really anxious and just wanting to lock my self in the bathroom and get in the tub with the water tap on, which I usually do to "escape" while playing chess on my phone. But I'm invited to parties today and tomorrow (popular yeeey), and I really want to meet people, but at the same time, I get so scared in a weird lonely way when I'm at parties and start worring about my ears.

To calm down in this setting I usually open the taptatalk app and read the am101 thread or something, to calm down.