How to Deal with Ear Problems

Transcript There are three kinds of hearing loss that a person can have. One is called neurosensory, or sensory neural, sometimes called nerve hearing loss. Nerve hearing loss is probably a misnomer, because it’s rarely the nerve. It’s almost always the little hairs inside the organ of hearing that aren’t converting the mechanical energy into …

Transcript My name is Ronald Hoffman. I’m a physician. My area of expertise is diseases of the ear. That is known as otology and neurotology. In this series of videos, I am going to try to teach you, in as close to layman’s terms as we can get, about the anatomy of the ear which …

Transcript Candling is a therapy that is offered in many holistic centers and is said to remove earwax and evil venoms from the ear. A candle is placed, it is lit, it burns down, and that I think is basically how the treatment is done. Let me be perfectly clear, candling is dangerous and you …

Transcript The treatment for temporomandibular joint dysfunction can be, as simple as, if it is just something acute, eating a soft diet, and taking an over the counter anti-inflammatory drug such as Advil. If it’s more serious, your dentist can balance your bite. Because oftentimes when we grind our teeth, our bite becomes crooked and …

Transcript A perforated eardrum is a hole in the eardrum. We call it a tympanic membrane perforation and there are many different causes. The most common cause is an ear infection that ruptures the eardrum. And such perforations always heal spontaneously. However, if you have repeated ear infections and repeated ruptures the hole might not …

Transcript Patients who complain of dizziness or vertigo will often be told that they have loose calcium crystals in their inner ear. Your inner ear is a motion sensor, and the way that your inner ear works is that there are little hairs that float in fluid. And when you move or turn, those hairs …

Transcript Ear tubes are tiny little microscopic tubes that are placed in the eardrum of individuals who either have recurrent ear infections or persistent fluid in the middle ear. We most often talk about ear tubes in the context of children, because the placement of ear tubes is a very common procedure in young children. …

Transcript The cochlear implant is a bionic ear that is surgically implanted that bypasses the sick hair cells in your inner ear and cause a neural sensory or sensory neural hearing loss. The nerve that underlies these little hairs is almost always alive and working. It’s the little hairs that don’t work. So a cochlear …

Transcript Your TMJ is your temporal mandibular joint. That’s a big scientific word, what does it mean? Your temporal mandibular joint is your jaw joint. If you put your finger in front of your ear and you open and close your mouth you’ll feel the movement. Your jaw joint is a diarthrodial joint which means …

Transcript Performance with a cochlear implant can be variable, but in general, there are three groups of patients that we think about when we think about how well someone will do with a cochlear implant. The first group is the child who was born deaf. Children have enormous central nervous system plasticity. And if the …

Transcript One of the greatest impediments to the use of hearing aids is individuals feeling self-conscious, and not wanting people to see their hearing aid for fear that they’ll think that they’re old, or they’re infirm, or they have a problem. What is very, very important to realize is that much more visible than the …

Transcript Body piercing in general has become very fashionable these days, and a significant amount of that piercing occurs on the outer ear. Typically, and classically, ears were pierced down here, and this lower part of your earlobe is fat. The upper part has cartilage in it. If you get an infection in your earlobe …

Transcript Dizziness is a very common complaint. When we say dizziness, we mean anything from light-headed, woozy, spacey, imbalance, difficulty walking, to the extreme of the room spinning around. If you have dizziness and you are an adult, your first stop should be with your Internist. Because dizziness can be caused by a systemic illness, …

Transcript When an individual has a hearing loss that causes difficulty with communication and there’s no other medical or surgical therapy available, we will often suggest the use of a hearing aid. Modern hearing aids are wonderful devices of technology that reflect everything that we enjoy every day in our stereo systems and our iPods …

Transcript There are two parts to your inner ear. The organ of hearing, and I think it’s pretty obvious to all of us what that does, it hears. And the organ of balance. Your organ of balance in your inner ear tells you your position in space. When you turn, you are aware that you …

Transcript An earache or pain in the ear is medically referred to as otalgia. Pain in the ear can arise from several different sources. Any infection in the outer ear or a tumor in the outer ear will cause ear pain. Any infection or tumor in the middle ear can cause ear pain. One of …

Transcript We have cartilage throughout our bodies. You have cartilage in the tip of your nose, you know that we have cartilage in all of our joints, and the majority of your ear, the external part of your ear, is cartilage, you can feel it and you can bend it. Except the very lobe, down …

Transcript When your eustachian tube is blocked, any one of the over-the-counter medications for sinusitis or nasal congestion will open the eustachian tube and relieve the fullness. In addition, you can sometimes pop your ear and this is called a valsalva maneuver. And the way that you should do it is pinch your nose and …

Transcript Cauliflower ear is a deformity of the outer ear that occurs secondary to trauma or infection or bleeding. And what happens is, thick scarring occurs that obliterates the normal curves of our ear, and it just looks like a big, fat glump. Once this occurs, it’s difficult to rectify and requires plastic surgery, careful …

Transcript One of the most common conditions of the ear is the buildup of earwax, or cerumen, as it is medically called. Earwax is the normal product of normal, healthy ears, and everyone should make some earwax. It serves a protective function, and it somewhat lubricates the skin of the ear canal. Earwax is made …

Transcript Fluid in the middle ear is referred to in the medical literature as serous otitis media. And serous otitis media occurs in the middle ear for several different reasons. The most common reason is as a result of a middle ear infection. Oftentimes when the acute infection which is causing pain or discomfort, is …

Transcript One of the common complaints that individuals have is that their ear fills full or clogged, and there are many different causes for this. Probably the most common cause is earwax simply blocking your ear canal, and this is easily enough treated. Your primary care doctor or your internist can often irrigate this out. …

Transcript One of the common complaints that individuals have is that after they swim, or they shower, water gets in their ear and they can’t get it out. And the question is why, and what can you do about it? The most common reason for water lodging in your ear is that there’s wax, and …

Transcript Man: Unfortunately, if our evaluation does not reveal any specific treatable cause for tinnitus, then there is no treatment. And this is a very big problem, because in the United States alone, there are over 20 million patients who suffer with tinnitus. But there is no pill that you can take twice a day …

Transcript Outer ear infections are best prevented by avoiding contamination of your outer ear canal. If you have never had an outer ear infection then you likely don’t have to take any precautions. But if you have a propensity to get outer ear infections, you want to be very careful when you swim not to …

Transcript Occasionally, a patient might be told that they have a cyst in their ear. This is a term that is very general and somewhat vague in terms of diseases of the ear. We’re all familiar with little cysts that we get on our skin and certainly you can get a cyst like that anywhere …

Transcript There are no well established and natural cures for ear infections. I’m not aware of any non-medical remedies for viral infections of the inner ear. However, if you have an outer ear infection, anything that acidifies the outer ear might make it better. So for example, if you mix some vinegar and water together …

Transcript A ringing or noise in the ear is called tinnitus. This sound can be a ringing, a humming, a buzzing, a swishing, a leaking radiator, a chirping bird, the sound of wind, the sound of rain, the sound of the ocean, crickets. It really doesn’t matter what it sounds like. It only matters that …

Transcript The most common middle ear infection is called acute suppurative otitis media. This is most common in children, less common in adults. It is usually due either to a bacteria or to a viral infection. Oftentimes middle ear infections occur in association with a generalized upper respiratory tract infection such as a cold or …

Transcript Outer ear infections are usually bacterial. And we commonly refer to them as “swimmer’s ear,” because the most common cause of an outer ear infection is getting water in your outer ear when you swim. The second most common cause of an outer ear infection is an individual manipulating their ear with a Q-tip …

Transcript Ear infections can involve any of the three anatomical parts of the ear. The outer ear, the middle ear, or the inner ear. Inner ear infections are almost always viral. It is very unusual to have a bacterial infection of your inner ear. Viral inner ear infections can effect either the organ of hearing …

Transcript As a rule, your infections are not contagious. Outer ear infections might be contagious only if you put your finger in your ear and you put your finger into someone else’s ear. It would have to be direct contact. Middle ear infections are not contagious, but the underlying condition that causes the middle ear …

Transcript This is a model of the human ear. Here we have the outer ear and here’s the ear canal. This yellow is fat. This blue is cartilage and this is the outer ear canal. Here is the eardrum. Behind the eardrum is the middle ear and behind the middle ear is the inner ear. …

Transcript The ear basically has three parts; the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The outer ear begins with your ear lobe. The purpose of the ear lobe is to collect sound, and funnel it down your ear canal to the ear drum. Scientifically know as the tympanic membrane. Sound energy strikes …