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..Perforated eardrums..
Can any ear doctors or people with relevant knowledge can advise on how to test out whether a perforated eardrum has healed or not ?
I don't usually hear whistling sound while doing the valsalva maneuver (fancy speak for holding your nose and blowing air into the ears/nasal cavity).
Seeing as there was a very high pitched whistling sound while blowing air through nose into the ear cavity following a painful ear episode, and a whistling that stopped when ear was plugged, i'm dead certain it is a perforated eardrum.
As blowing more air in there is probably not a good idea, how can I find out it's healed so I can clean* it more thoroughly and all that?
*ear cleaning for people with wet wax isn't as simple, getting the stuff out manually risks that some might stick at the end and possibly get stuck to the eardrum and cause an infection. Okay, I admit that it took 30 years of cleaning them with paper to get here, but after they heal I'll be putting a bit of oil in there and then rinsing them out with warm water in the shower.
Get an "elephant ear" spray bottle thingy off amazon. Start with diluted hydrogen peroxide, then spray out with warm water and a bit of white vinegar. Chunks may come out. Maybe oil afterwards, I haven't tried that part yet myself.
I had an ear infection a while ago that was caused by a horrible wax impaction against the eardrum. Now I've got wet earwax that has to be cleared out twice a week. If it gets worse again, I'll also be hitting a doctor.
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Do you actually need to clean your ears?
I feel a bit like with the recent discussion about pubic shaving. Yeah, sure, you can do that if you like...but is it actually worth the bother?
I mean, if you're east Asian and have dry earwax that apparently just falls out,maybe not.
Depending on the shape of your ear, even if you have wet ear wax, you might not have to clean it either. Especially if you swim a lot or wash it out with warm water at times, etc.
But it's possible for your ear wax to accumulate on your eardrum, which can cause infection and serious pain, or at the very least work as an earplug, so muffle sounds. The former happened to me, I think.
The pain basically disappeared after I put some oil in there into which the ear wax dissolved.
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What method is this exactly?
You twist a bit of toilet paper several times so it's something like a .. stick ? gently insert it inside and keep rotating it around in the ear. Bits of ear wax will stick to it, and there's little risk of injury because it's just toilet paper.
A more enlightened q-tip then
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How long has it been? Did you have any discharge from your ear during the ear pain? Any decrease in hearing that has since recovered?
Short of having someone stick an otoscope in your ear, you're looking at somewhere between 3 weeks to 2 months for a perforation to resolve. I'd strongly advise against putting anything in your ear till time's you're not having issues and time's up. This might be hypocritical given my love of q-tips, but you're better safe than sorry.
There was never any discharge. The ear has felt blocked since day 1, which was not this week's monday but the one before that, so cca 10 days.
It got much better after I put one dose of cipro ear drops in it and some cooking oil later. I should've written down what relieved the pain but it went from "have to take ibalgin to get some sleep" to almost imperceptible.
Somehow, I lost the cipro ear drops, I don't understand how because there's no clutter, I've search the entire room including the fridge and the waste bin and all that.
I don't think it's perforated anymore, somehow. There was a really high pitched whistle the first day. Since then I've tried gently re-inflating the cavity in the ear.
I can't seem to get it right, aka, regain normal hearing.
Anyway, put some drops of oil in there, then cleaned them out with paper. Put some betadine solution in there, cleaned that out too. I've got an appointment for wednesday, I guess I'll know what's the status then.
Hopefully it'll heal in time and I'll get normal hearing back.
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Have you posted about q-tips before? Lately I feel like I'm doing a bad thing by using q-tips, but when I use diluted hydrogen peroxide sometimes my hearing feels like it gets muffled for a long time.
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