- In this video, I'm gonna show you five natural ways
to unclog your plugged up ears, coming up.
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Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology,
and Founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem Arizona.
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.
Our ears can get plugged up for a variety of reasons.
One of those is changing elevations.
So whether you're driving in a car through the mountains,
or you're on an airplane, ascending or descending,
you can get the sensation
that your ears are being plugged up.
Another reason your ears would feel clogged
is if you were having a cold or sinus infection
and you have a bunch of mucus
that is plugging up your sinuses.
So what is actually giving you the sensation
that your ears are clogged?
Our ears are comprised of an outer ear, middle ear,
and inner ear.
Our middle ear is connected to our throat
by our eustachian tube.
This tube is responsible
for keeping the air pressure in our middle ear
equal with the air pressure in our outer ear.
If the eustachian tube does not keep things equal,
we get this perception that our ears are clogged.
So the simple solution to this problem
is actually getting air to go through our eustachian tube
into our middle ear space to regulate that pressure.
Under normal circumstances,
our ears will naturally unclog just by swallowing,
but when swallowing isn't enough,
you need to use a trick in order to get air
through your eustachian tube into your middle ear space,
and the first one is called the Valsalva maneuver.
Very simply,
the Valsalva maneuver is when you plug your nose and blow.
That'll take air, push it through your eustachian tube
into your middle ear space,
and it will regulate that pressure.
If the Valsalva maneuver isn't getting the job done,
then you may have to use our second technique,
which is the Lowry method.
With the Lowry method, you basically do the same steps
as you would with the Valsalva maneuver,
but instead of just plugging your nose and blowing,
you're plugging your nose, blowing, and swallowing
at the same time.
That sometimes gets extra air through your eustachian tube
and into your middle ear space.
If you're not capable of doing those first two techniques,
then the third technique is yawning,
because when you yawn, it opens up those eustachian tubes
just enough to let some air through.
Technique number four is a little bit weird,
but you could actually have someone put their lips
around your nose, making sure they create a good seal,
and they can gently blow into your nose while you swallow.
This'll force air through the tube,
again, into your middle ear space.
I wouldn't really recommend it,
'cause it can be dangerous if they're blowing too hard.
Instead of doing technique number four,
I would probably recommend that you do technique number five
which is actually using the Eustachi.
The Eustachi is a very simple product
that actually will blow air through your nostril
to unclog your eustachian tubes while you swallow.
The concept is
is that you actually take this little hole right there,
at the tip of the Eustachi,
you'll put that into your nostril,
and then you'll hit this start button, here,
which will gently force air through your nostril,
down through your throat, and into your eustachian tubes.
It's a much safer method of doing it than having someone
wrap their lips around your nose and blowing.
When you use it, you'll do something like this, right here.
You'll hit the start button,
and you'll feel air go through your nostril,
and when you feel that air, you're gonna swallow.
You'll keep that button pressed down while you're doing it,
and voila, it forces air through your eustachian tube
and into your middle ear space,
getting rid of that clogged sensation.
Now if you've tried all of these natural methods
and none of them seem to work,
you're plugged ears could actually be something
a little bit more serious.
The first one is is earwax.
If you have a bunch of earwax in your outer ear
plugging up your ear canal,
it will definitely give you the sensation
of being plugged up.
In fact, most people think that that's the original cause
of their ears feeling clogged,
but then when they do some ear washes,
or they go in and have their ears cleaned out,
they find that they really didn't have any earwax
in there at all, and that it was just a middle ear issue.
The second thing that could be going on
is fluid in your middle ear space.
So instead of a negative middle ear pressure,
you actually have fluid inside of there
that is giving you that clogged up feeling.
Now every once in a while,
that fluid will naturally go away.
sometimes doing those techniques that I described earlier
will get that fluid to go back down
through your eustachian tube into your throat,
but every once in a while, it requires the use
of a pressure equalization tube
that will need to be put into your eardrum
by an ear specialist.
And a third possible cause of your ears feeling clogged
is sudden sensorineural hearing loss.
This generally happens in one ear versus the other,
and it is a much more serious medical situation
than those other two situations that I talked about.
It's actually required of you to go into
a hearing care professional to get it diagnosed
and to receive treatment from an ear specialist
in the form of steroids, or even a steroid injection
through your eardrum,
to stop whatever is actually attacking your hearing organ.
Treatment is extremely time sensitive
with sudden sensorineural hearing loss,
so if you try any of these other techniques
and they don't work,
you need to immediately go in and see an Audiologist
to get your hearing tested,
and if you have sustained
a sudden sensorineural hearing loss,
you need to get treatment immediately.
It is never a good idea to just assume
that your clogged ears is due to something simple
like unequalized pressure in your middle ear space.
So if you try these techniques that I mentioned before,
and you've tried the Eustachi,
and that doesn't fix the problem,
you need to schedule an appointment with an Audiologist
to get your hearing evaluated
to see what the problem really is.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments section below.
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go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
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