IT'S HERE AGAIN

Well back in January of this Year, I had posted about my SINUSITIS, and well since it now be fall, it has returned. Since the middle of August till now, I have been suffering in various stages, I have had some pretty serious coughing going on, runny nose and tiredness etc.

Boy do I just love this time of the year. I look like I am constantly sick, but all it is is severe allergies to the pollens (I am assuming, since it when the leaves drop or start to bloom) in Maryland.

Well since it has been 10 weeks of about 90% hearing loss in my left ear, yep always the left ear first, my wife has finally encouraged me to go and see a ENT doctor, so yeah I have to pay the $20 copay to get the referral and then the $30 pay to see the ENT doctor.

A normal ear looks like this


my ear looks like this


They did about 40 minutes of hearing test, and told me that my right here has some but not too much negative pressure, but my left ear, the ear drum isn't even moving. So we do the beep test etc for both ears, and then at least we did a nerve based hearing test too, to rule out any real hearing loss.


The result of all these test come to say that my left ear is suffering from major conductive hearing loss, basically that just means, my ear are full of puss behind the ear drum and that the ear drum is very retracted. This seems to be very common for me. Any time that I have a sever allergy attack my Eustachian tube refuses to drain properly, so because of this, the doctor recommends that I get tubes in my ear again. This time they are for up 5-7 years. Unlike when I was a kid, new tubes every few months, depending on how much my head grew or activities I did, that might have caused them to fall out.

The goal of having tubes in the ear is to try and keep an air flow into the ear to promote health

This is a 3 step process

Procedure for Ear Tubes

The procedure is performed in an outpatient OR setting for children and often in the office for adults. The procedure is usally quick and takes less than 10 minutes to perform.

The goal of ear tubes is to provide adequate ventilation of the middle ear space since blockage of the eustachian tube and subsequent pressure changes caused the problems in the first place. A second benefit is that if another infection is to occur, the fluid can drain out if the tube.

One important consideration to remember is that the middle ear space (area behind the ear drum) is supposed to be sterile, that is not contaminated with bacteria. The ear drum functions as a protective barrier to bacteria-laden water from the shower of swimming pool. With an ear tube in place, a route for water to enter the middle ear is present and this can lead to recurrent infections. Thus, it is important to avoid dunking one's head under water and to be sure to wear some sort of occlusive device to protect the ears when around water.

So as I continue to live in this world with this constant buzzing in my left ear, and lack of ability to hear anyone who speaks at certain tone ranges or addresses me on my left side, we just now wait for surgery.