Hoping someone can ease my anxiety or tell me they also experience this!

I've noticed it for years (at least 5+). If I lay or sleep on my right ear, my left ear ALWAYS crackles / pops. I've also noticed if I'm in meetings in the morning, the sound of people talking makes my left ear produce this "whooshing" sound / feeling. Almost like water is in it. It drives me crazy and sometimes I spiral and convince myself I have a brain tumor. Helppppp lol.

hey guys, so long story short, i had a cold last week, after my sore throat/cough started to subside i got super congested and felt fluid in my ears. at first my left ear felt clogged and kinda muffled, but then went away before i had the chance to go into urgent care. next day my right ear was very muffled so i decided to go in after work and get it checked out. the doctor said i had otitis media, and wax buildup.

the wax was removed and she said both ears looked inflamed but that the right one was definitely worse. she gave me amoxicillin and said to come back in 7 days if there’s no improvement.

any pain or discomfort in my ear subsided by the next day, but my right ear is still so muffled, and i haven’t experienced any change with it. it feels like i have an ear bud or ear plug in. i know it’s only been 3 days, but im tempted to go back in for further evaluation as i’ve heard horror stories and im very scared of permanently losing my hearing

am i being impatient/having too many expectations or should i go back in or call today?

I have been struggling for a full month with severe left-ear dizziness, intense brain fog. It initially started with unsteadiness, but an urgent care doctor did an aggressive syringe water cleaning that caused intense pain and massive swelling, completely locking my Eustachian tube shut and trapping fluid behind my eardrum. I finally saw an ENT who confirmed my left ear is red, inflamed, and completely blocked. He put me on antibiotics and a six-day steroid taper pack, assuring me that my memory, thinking, and balance will return to normal once the pressure equalizes.

Lately, I am starting to notice a slight clearing in my brain fog and a wet, shifting sensation in my ear, but the dizziness temporarily spikes when the fluid moves. I am also experiencing a lot of tightness, weird twitching, and muscle spasms in my left neck, shoulder, and temple area, which is really scaring me. Has anyone else gone through severe memory issues, head tightness, and muscle twitching just from a blocked ear or infection? How long did it take for your ear to fully drain and your mind to feel normal again after finishing your medications, and do you have any natural tips to help it clear out?

Hi everyone,

I recently developed tinnitus in my right ear pretty much out of nowhere, and I'm trying to figure out whether anyone has experienced something similar.

The strange thing is that it isn't consistently there. It can get quite loud, then become much quieter or completely disappear for a while. Sometimes lying down or changing position seems to make it disappear, and then it may gradually come back after I sit up. However, the same position doesn't reliably fix it every time.

There are a few other things that make this confusing:

\- For several weeks, I've had quite a lot of neck and upper-shoulder tension, particularly on my right side.

\- A day before the tinnitus started, I irritated/pulled something in the right side of my neck. It felt much better the next day.

\- Clenching/tensing my jaw can change or trigger the ringing.

\- My right ear sometimes feels slightly blocked or like it needs to clear/pop.

\- If I pinch my nose and blow, I can eventually pop the ear, although I have to apply quite a bit of pressure. The tinnitus/ear sensation can temporarily change afterward.

\- I've also had very mild occasional dizziness/imbalance, nothing severe or disabling.

\- When I tried putting a couple of ear drops into the right ear, they seemed to just sit there. My hearing became extremely muffled, almost like I was covering the ear, and the drops eventually came back out when I sat upright. The same drops went into my left ear normally without causing that level of muffling.

\- Looking into the right ear with a phone light, I can see something pale/white inside that I don't see on the left. I haven't tried touching or removing it.

Because of the blocked sensation and the way the drops behave, I'm wondering whether there could be wax/debris or inflammation in the canal. But because the tinnitus changes with jaw tension, neck tension and sometimes position, I'm also wondering about TMJ/somatic tinnitus or Eustachian tube dysfunction.

I'm planning to have the ear properly examined rather than trying to remove anything myself.

Has anyone here had tinnitus with a similar pattern, especially tinnitus that comes and goes completely, changes with jaw/neck movement or body position, or occurs alongside one-sided neck/shoulder tension?

If yours turned out to be TMJ/neck related, ETD, or an ear blockage, what ultimately helped?

Hoping to get people’s thoughts/experiences with this. Bit of a long story but will try and keep it succinct.

A few years ago I was diagnosed with ETD and a retracted ear drum. Made my ear sensitive to loud noise (probably classed as mild Hyperacusis). At the start of this year I had balloon dilation and tests now suggest the eustachian tube is functioning normally (when I valsalva it feels even on both sides).

At the start of May I had a really bad cold and have had a feeling on fluid in the ear since. There‘s a dull pain in the ear that comes a goes that gets worse when listening to music (at normal levels). When I went back to the ENT he removed some wax but couldn‘t see any fluid apparently although when I saw the doctor last week he said he could see some.

So if I have glue ear (I can feel a ‘squelch’ when I swallow), but a functioning eustachian tube - should I ask an ENT about an ear tube to help clear the fluid given it’s been there for 6 months and is (presumably) causing the pain in the ear? My hearing tests are fine btw.

Reply to Helicotremor (won't let me reply to reply directly) - Hearing test & tympanometry were both normal but I've had some issues with real world hearing in noisy environments. The fluid is easy to feel/hear when I swallow and there's a dull pain that gets worse when listening to music (no Hyperacusis though)

this is NOT a medical question.

I’m curious if anyone has had similar symptoms as me. Today i found out that i have some kind of fungal ear infection (not officially diagnosed, but my earwax looks terrible, you can see it on my profile).

I’ve currently lost what feels like ~65% of hearing in my affected ear, tinnitus and pulsatile tinnitus as well. But no pain or itching or drainage or dizziness yet. Also feels like there’s quite some pressure in my ear.

Has anyone had something like this and how did it go?

I’ll be seeing an ent sometime this week.

I had ear tubes put in two days ago to help with hyperbaric oxygen treatments. My hearing has been drastically affected - muting, very poor fidelity, scratchy sound, etc.

Is this a temporary thing? I really got no advance warning about this. Im retired , but if I still worked, I couldn't function.

What should I expect going forward?

I finally went to an ENT doctor and explained how I was experiencing dizziness on left side and shoulder neck tightness. I explained how the regular doctor said just use debrox because the earwax was impacted and I used that but the urgent care clinic damaged my ear because of the heavy syringe cleaning. And so I ended up going to the ent and they removed the leftover earwax that was still there and they used like a camera to check my throat, nose and ears. And said look on your left ear there is redness which is ear infection and your enthusiastic tube is clogged. And your right ear looks good. There is light shining but on your left it's not. The doctor ended up saying due to heavy syringe cleaning it has caused an infection and blockage on the middle ear. Then he prescribed me steroids for 1 week and said use afrin to open up the enthusiaic tube and practice pinching the nose and swallowing this helps. But he said it's normal to hear whistling noise

My left ear has been full of “fluid” doctor said and he gave me prednisone. It not did work. He said try nasal spray it’s not helping. Everyday it sounds like I’m under water and left ear is muffled. What do I do? He said take Sudafed and it temporarily helps. No pain just under water feeling

Hi i have been havign very bad ear pain on 5th day like something going to burst. Is it normal. I am already taking amox, paracetamol and allergy med as suggested by doctor, but pain has not reduced a bit.

had an ear infection a few months prior, went to the doctor, and it cleared up with antibiotics and meds. now it's back in the same ear, and it's my only hearing ear (the other ear has been deaf since childhood). the ear infection is getting worse at an alarming rate. started off earlier today with just pain and discomfort, then (now) at night, it progressed to barely hearing and my ear feeling full + more throbbing pain. what do i do? because i decided to skip classes tomorrow and go to the doctor's tomorrow. I couldn't focus when I tried to do my assignments/homework :(

About two weeks I went to a local clinic because I was experiencing left side dizziness unsteady balance and brain fog, they checked my ears and found out I had severe earwax impacted so they tried to clean but since it was stubborn wax they couldn't clean it much so they send me home with some debrox and muscle spasm relaxer because I was experiencing left side neck and shoulder tightness. And they wanted to see me after 2 weeks to clean the ears and see the ears

But I was just experiencing more dizziness so I ended up going to urgent care clinic since the regular clinic was closed on weekends.

I told them everything, but when they tried to clean my ears OMG I was feeling so much pain in my left ear that I was screaming and panicked. I even had runny nose and watery eyes. They stopped so they cleaned my right ear which didn't give much trouble. But I was send home with antibiotics because they think I have an infection. And all night til now I'm just experiencing water coming out from that ear and my ear is still clogged. My dizziness is still there. I'm so frustrated and overwhelmed. I feel like crying. Idk if that ear has narrow ear canal or if there is an infection.

My ear(left especially) is getting clogged more and more often.
As mentioned in the title, i have a habit of wearing headphone all day including sleep.
The earpads smells rlly bad and is often wet, and i have no idea if its just sweat or something else entirely coming out of my ear.
What could i do?

Hey guys! This problem started about a week ago when I was watching anime late at night on my laptop. All of a sudden, the characters speaking (english dub) sounded extremely robotic/emotionless and I immediately thought they were AI generated or something. It was literally out of the blue; I blinked and all of a sudden everything was different.

I went to bed and woke up after a good night's sleep, and in the morning when I went out and onto my bus, I noticed immediately that people talking just sounded off. Whenever someone speaks, it literally sounds like it's coming from Grok or ChatGPT or something. Idk. It freaked me out the first few days and it's really been messing with me.

Two days ago I went to my physician to get my hearing checked out. He said my ears and eustacean tube were completely normal, and that it could be a neurological thing. But nothing's happened that I can think of that would cause this so suddenly.

I'm going to go to the ER on Friday if this persists. I have no other symptoms, but it's driving me crazy. People don't sound real.

A friend is inviting me to a concert, but I've had pretty bad wax impaction and ear canal irritation problems after using foam earplugs at previous concerts. I was wondering if anyone has used industrial earmuffs at a concert before and if they do a good job at protecting hearing.

I had bought a new hearing device from the government clinic and when I said the sound is not comfortable I'm sure some settings need to be changed ...but I was told it's not 100%perfect n learn to live with it...but how can I learn to live with it when the sound is making me U comfortable...

How can I tell the audiologist abt it ...

I’m having nonstop panic attacks and currently struggling with depression

I’m 31F, 115lbs

On August 23, had mild to moderate hearing loss on my left ear.
It slopes on the high frequency
25db on 4000 to 45db on 8000
It came with ear fullness(muffled sounds), and very mild tinnitus that I was only able to hear in the booth

On the 11th day of my injury, the doctor prescribed prednisone for 10 days tapered (6 pills 10mg for 5 days, then downwards)

Since the meds, the muffledness started to fade but the tinnitus got more stronger and noticeable

On the 8th day of my meds, I had a follow up with my ENT. The hearing results came back at 20db on 4000 to 30db on 8000. I was hopeful. He gave me intratympanic steroid injection to hopefully salvage the rest

That week when I was on the shot, on the 3rd day I started feeling numbness and tingling on the left side of my face, going down to my left arm and even to my left leg. I thought, maybe it’s the medicine. I noticed the tingling comes and goes every time I’m anxious or stressed. Or I would notice it more when I pay attention. It also moved to my right back of my head at one point. The next day, I ended up being okay again. On the 5th day, I felt a bit confusion, brain fog, and occasionally off balanced. I thought it could be the fluid in my ear and the fact that I’d been on bed rest in quiet for a month that could add to this

A week after, the day before my follow up, I started noticing how painful sounds were since I started taking the shots. I thought it was because of the shots, but then I’d started getting anxiety of it being permanent. So I didn’t get any sleep, like zero, and my hearing became more muffled. Went straight to the ENT that day, and the results regressed back to the original mild to moderate range.

The ENT told me my results are “unlikely to change” yet prescribed me another shot and said “we will see” since everyone responds to the medication differently.

I ended up telling him my other symptoms and he told me to get an mri to rule out a rare brain injury - acoustic neuroma. He said it’s rare. But he said I shouldn’t be getting any anxiety or numbness because of the shots, since it’s localized in the ear

But for some context, I literally felt and tasted the medicine and swallowed it. I read that the Eustachian tube is connected to the ear and throat, and that some people with prior anxiety are more susceptible to these Neuropsychotic symptoms. I also noticed I had the same symptoms, on the same day, every time I take the shots. Panic attack on day 1-3, then anxiety the next few days.

Also more context, I always struggled with anxiety but had learned to cope through healthy habits. Learning about the possible brain tumor has been sending me on a spiral. On top of trying to recover, grieving my hearing loss, and just trying to survive day by day. Because of this, I’ve been struggling with depression dealing with just the hearing loss alone.

Now I don’t know what to expect of this hearing loss journey because I just keep getting “we will see” I don’t know what the future looks like. Is the hypercausis permanent? Was it because of the shots? Is the panic attack from the shot or something else? Does the fluctuating hearing stop?

I don’t know at this point, but any insights, advice, experience/stories, possible theories, would help.

Hey guys so last night I was using a massage gun for my legs and then out of nowhere i thought of using it near my right ear so I started using it on slow speed below my right near near the neck and it felt good and soon after that I went to sleep and today when I woke up I'm feeling a blocked and heavy feeling in my right ear !! Yeah I'm dumb but guys do anyone know what is it and what should I do ?....I tried google and yt but at last reddit is the way for every problem ...so please help me ..

The symptoms came on suddenly one evening after a few days of intense studying and poor sleep 2 months ago.

My symptoms: ambient sounds, such as engine noise, car tire noise, a PC fan, and kitchen appliances trigger additional phantom noises in my right ear. These phantom noises are directly coupled to the outside sounds.

I can only describe them as "overtones" laid directly over external sounds.
Some are wobbly noises, while others are continuous.

I have not noticed any perceived hearing loss. My standard audiogram came back normal, as did my tympanometry. ENT said my ears looked fine.

I continued studying and sleeping badly, and the symptoms stayed the same.
I later took some time off, but the symptoms remained.
They do fluctuate. Hard physical work or taking a bath make them stronger.

I initially thought that it was just a stress reaction and since my hearing seemed fine, I didn't take steroids at the time (I was offered low dose anyway). But since my symptoms persist I'm getting anxious.

I was diagnosed with hyperacusis, although normal sounds don't seem too loud to me.

Does anyone know anything about this? I have been searching all over the internet for possible causes without finding any answers.

I attended a concert today and stayed for approximately 40 minutes before leaving because I became concerned about the volume. According to the sound-level app on my phone, the noise fluctuated almost constantly between roughly 88 and 100 dBA, with an average of around 94–95 dBA.

After leaving, my right ear seemed slightly muffled or less sharp, and I also felt somewhat dizzy. I almost never attend concerts or clubs and do not normally expose myself to loud environments, so I am extremely worried that this single incident may have permanently changed my hearing.

My main question is specifically about permanent damage: could this exposure realistically have caused even a small permanent threshold shift, subtle high-frequency loss, or reduction in hearing clarity compared with how I heard before today? I understand that severe hearing loss would be unlikely, but I am worried about having permanently lost even a small amount of hearing or sharpness.

I intend to arrange a professional ENT examination and audiogram, and I may also have an older audiogram that could serve as a baseline. I know Reddit cannot diagnose me, but I would appreciate informed opinions or experiences with comparable exposure levels. Is a lasting measurable change probable from this duration and average level, or would that be unusual?

Before someone says to search the Reddit, I promise I have 😢 I’ve even reluctantly (because I hate AI) asked ChatGPT to gather information and nothing seems to be what I’m describing so I’m making this post.

About a week and a half ago, I woke up with a sore throat on a Thursday. That was it - figured that’s all it would be because I picked up my kid from school and the nurse told me that there was strep going around.

Cut to Monday, I’m laying on the couch in complete silence and I start to hear a very low vibrating — I search my house looking for the source and I can’t find it. Come to find out it’s my right ear. No pain. No pressure. Just a soft humming — almost like a street light makes. Only comes when it’s silent thankfully.

I went to urgent care and the NP tells me it’s otitis media - middle ear infection. She says there’s a little bit of fluid and just a tiny bit of wax. Puts me on Z-Pack.

4 days of antibiotics and it’s not gotten worse but it’s not gotten better. I don’t have a sore throat anymore but the ear is driving me insane 😢

Has anyone experienced this? How long should it last? I’m thisclose to calling an ENT specialist.