- Hi, guys, in this video,
I'm gonna talk about the four main reasons
your ears feel clogged coming up.
(calm music)
Hi, I'm Cliff Olson, doctor of audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
and on this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing related information
to help make you a better informed consumer.
So if you're into that,
consider hitting the Subscribe button.
We've all experienced it, clogged ears
but what causes your ears to feel clogged?
I'm gonna cover these four main reasons right now.
Reason number one is earwax.
Now, as the name suggests,
earwax is a natural waxy substance
that's secreted by the skin glands inside of your ear canal.
Now, earwax is important
because it coats and lubricates the ear canal
and protects against things like fungus and bacteria.
Earwax typically migrates out of your ear on its own
but there are some cases where either ear canal anatomy
or using Q-tips can push that earwax
down and further inside your ear
and it doesn't actually come out.
This is what we call impacted earwax.
The professional removal of earwax
will involve three options.
The first one is by curette
or having it picked out of your ear.
The second option is suction to suck it out of your ear
and the third option is irrigation
which is using water to flush it out of your ear.
If earwax is too dry, it can become very hard
and when it's really hard,
it's really difficult to get out of your ear.
If this is the case,
you'll probably have to use some kind of an earwax softener
like Debrox.
I don't recommend trying to pull earwax out on your own.
That is how you can injure your ear
and then you'll have way more problems
than some built up earwax.
Now, the second cause is eustachian tube dysfunction.
Now, the eustachian tube is a tube
that connects from your middle ear space to your throat.
The dysfunction occurs when that tube is either swollen
or won't open to allow passage of air
when you swallow or yawn.
Now, if this tube gets clogged,
it can create either a positive pressure
inside your middle ear space
or more oftenly a negative pressure
inside your middle ear space.
What this will do is this will retract your eardrum
to the point where it actually causes pain.
The sensation that you would usually feel
is the need to pop your ears.
Now, eustachian tube dysfunction
usually coincides with either having a cold
or having a sinus infection
and it could also lead to the buildup of fluid
inside your middle ear space.
When you have a retracted eardrum
or fluid inside of your middle ear,
both of these things restrict the movement of sound
from your outer ear through to your inner ear
which can create that muffled sensation.
Now, there are circumstances
where when you have this eustachian tube dysfunction
and a virus or some bacteria
gets into the fluid of your middle ear space,
it can result in a middle ear infection.
Middle ear infections typically give you the sensation
of pain because of the inflammation
and the infected fluid that's behind the eardrum.
If you do have this sensation,
you should seek medical attention immediately.
Reason number three is an outer ear infection,
sometimes known as swimmer's ear.
Now, this happens when your ear canal becomes inflamed
and generally produces some kind of pus or fluid
that leaks from your ear.
When this happens, when this fluid that's leaking
is thicker and infected
then it typically means that you need to seek medical care
to have some kinda antibiotics
or treatment on your ear canal to get it to go away
and just remember, if you just got done swimming,
you may just have some water inside your ear
so make sure that you give it a chance to dry out
to make sure that that's not the problem
before you seek medical care.
Okay, onto reason number four
and probably the most serious of the causes
of sounds feeling muffled or your ears feeling clogged
and that is sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
Some of the symptoms of sudden hearing loss
are the occurrence of a hearing loss without a real reason,
typically happens in one ear but can happen in both ears
and it's not really accompanied by pain.
It just happens.
You either wake up and you can't hear
out of one of your ears
or you're driving in your car
and all of a sudden the hearing goes out
in one of your ears.
Other symptoms that can come along with this
is the sensation of dizziness or aural fullness
or fullness in your ear and tinnitus,
that ringing and buzzing that you get.
Now, the typical causes of a sudden hearing loss
are either a virus that's destroying your cochlea
which is your inner ear hearing organ
or a tumor, a rapidly growing tumor, on your auditory nerve.
Either way, both of these situations are extremely serious
and it needs to be diagnosed right away
if treatment is gonna be successful for you.
A lot of people mistakenly assume
that it's earwax causing this
and that isn't always the case.
Treatment for this condition
often can include the use of an injection of a steroid
through your eardrum, aural steroids and an MRI
to ensure that it is or isn't a tumor.
There you go, guys.
Those are the four reasons why your ears might feel clogged.
Sometimes, it'll be something as simple
as just getting some earwax taken out of your ears
and other times, you can save your hearing
by treating it sooner rather than later.
That's it for today's video.
If you have any comments,
leave them in the comment section below.
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I'll see you next time.
(calm music)