My Left Ear Is Somewhat Blocked

Yea I used to get dizzy, that did go away. idk what to tell you about the ear fullness. It seems worse too in the morning. I think it could be sheer gravity from a lying down position.
Looking at all of this (PFS) you solve one of these problems, I think you start to figure some of this out.
There has been numerous complaints of sinus problems from Accutane, alot of guys would start to talk about an abnormal coating on their tongue as well.

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For me it’s the same the entire day. And now it’s feeling like actual hearing loss and instead of a blocked feeling. Like before I could feel it blocked, but now I can’t really sense much there and feels like I’ve lost actual hearing. My tongue has a whiteish coating as well.

Thanks for responding.

I’m 20 years in and still developing shit. My ears are often painful, sometimes blocked, sometimes the feeling of intense pressure and popping, no mucous, sometimes exceptionally sensitive to noise. All of these come and go but the tinnitus remains permanent and has got louder with time. For the majority ear issues come and go except for the tinnitus. Hopefully it will pass. Stay away from Lou’s noises.

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Lou’s noises? Do you mean loud?

Yes sorry

This is driving me crazy. It’s not getting any better. Hopefully I can see an ENT soon, but I doubt she’ll be able to help given other docs haven’t helped with my other pfs symptoms in the past.

Ive seen alot of ent’s. You might get a ct sinus scan, hearing test, maybe even an mri. Ive had all of these. ive also tried nasal steroids, h1 blockers, h2 blockers and antibiotics like augmentin. PPIs as well.
NAC might help but its probably a bandaid, it thins mucus and has some anti inflammatory and antibiotic properties.

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Oh wow, thanks for all of that info. I’ll look those all up when I can. Quesrion: do you have actual hearing loss, or is your ear/ears just blocked? I’m hoping this is something like sinus congestion and not actual damage to my ear. Maybe it’ll be chronic congestion, but at least nothing is damaged at of right now. If I hold my breath and pinch my nostrils to try to clear my ears, my right ear does nothing, but my left ear (the problem one) will make sounds and sensations as though it’s blocked.

No hearing loss. How long have you been dealing with this problem?

Two weeks. It started with my left ear starting to block up, so I would swallow to unblock it. This worked for a few days, but eventually I couldn’t keep up and could unblock it enough, and ever since then it’s been constant. Sometimes if I swallow I can unblock it a bit, but never entirely. Last night I did a hearing test on YouTube. My right ear can hear at 14500 hz but my left ear can only hear at 12500 hz. I’ve not done a hearing test in a long time so maybe this is normal for me, but I doubt it. It feels like my hearing in my left ear is worse ever since the blocking started.

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You all need to first check it’s not wax. This can be easily treated with drops or even olive oil. It can make the ear feel very full and pressure changes or flights can make it worse.

In my case I don’t think it’s wax because when I use a q-tip to clean it there’s hardly any wax on it. Although I’m not going very deep since I don’t want to damage anything, but still, wouldn’t there be a lot of wax on the q-tip if my ear was full of it?

It can be deep. Doctor can see it in 1 min (if you can get an appt)…May be something else but if it’s that it’s a very easy win. My hearing was 50% reduced with heavy wax, resolved within 2 weeks with drops

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Its probably not earwax. It can involve the whole sinus structure and probably even extends to gum tissue and the oral cavity.
I remember someone who had taken Accutane posting his ent said his sinus structure had collapsed or diagnosed “collapse of the sinus structure” he had prescribed some antibiotics. He never posted a follow-up but said his parents were considering sending him to Mayo.

Hmm, sad but interesting. I hope he found some form of solution. I’ve had chronic sinus issues for the last 11 years but never ear issues until now.

I should give a quick update to this thread and say that to this day I still have a blockage issue in my left ear. If I plug my nose and blow air out, I can hear my left ear squeak, so there’s definitely some sort of blockage there. So officially I’ve had this for 6 months with no resolution whatsoever. I also saw an ENT last October who took a good look and couldn’t determine anything. Took pressure in both my ears, was fine. Did a hearing test, was also fine.

Sounds about right, Ive seen a few ents myself.
My left ear feeling of fullness never resolved either.
I have thoughts about blood vessel irritation, loss of muscle that supports structure, and/or chronic inflammation of the mucus layer that may continue to drive this issue.

Here’s a thought on inflammation though, a person may want inflammation to facilitate initial healing and recovery, this is something that would lessen with time.
For example, some experts call acne during puberty a type of immune training that the body reacts to and overcomes.
The same could maybe be said for the sinus structure.
As a defence reaction, inflammation is necessary to protect the body from damage. Although inflammation removes detrimental materials to enable the body to recover1, it is important to avoid insufficient or excessive inflammation via regulation by a well-established immune system.
Some have also had similar thoughts on diseases like CFS,
an insufficient immune response or ineffective inflammation without the benefits or recovery.

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Intense immune activation (also heat generation) followed by immune tolerance as to what a real type of therapy could look and feel like.
Vitamin A is capable of both, but its important to remember retinoic acid is the active form of vitamin a.

It is intriguing that RALDH expression in mucosal DCs and stromal cells is induced after birth.
Commensal bacteria may play a crucial role in the maturation or conditioning of the mucosal immune system during postnatal development.

The vitamin A metabolite retinoic acid (RA) plays a crucial role in mucosal immune responses.
RA appears to be a key molecule that controls lymphocyte homing properties and mucosal immune responses. It is thus of importance to know how RALDH levels are regulated within the mucosal immune system.

Vitamin A has long been recognized for its role in immunity. Retinoic acid deficiency compromises mucosal barriers of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts (4). It has also been described that vitamin A deficiency affects the ability of macrophages and neutrophils to migrate to sites of infection, phagocytose, and kill bacteria (4, 5). Vitamin A also plays a critical role in the development of adaptive immune responses in the intestines.

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Did you ever have improvements with this? I have it in both, right being worse.
Left can temporarily unblock partially on a good day but pops a few seconds later suggesting to me its inflamed

Yeah that happened to me in my left ear, hasn’t happened to or moved to the right. It’s gotten better with time but can still happen with an increase of the tinnitus. Not severely anymore but enough to be really obnoxious. The tinnitus used to be bad enough to hear roaring over traffic. It’s one of my most persistent symptoms. Recently the tinnitus has been going more quiet but still has episodes of getting really loud. I can’t really tie anything I’m doing to the fluctuations besides that when everything else is worse it tends to be worse too.