Eustachian Tube Dysfunction

[iamjon]

I don't exactly know what tensing the soft palate would feel like, but I definitely do the "moving the jaw down as if yawning" part. I can even do it without moving my jaw at all... I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing but some muscles inside my head move and it causes some commotion inside my head that sounds like my ears are popping, but it achieves nothing. I get a similar sounding "pop" every time I swallow. I can't even remember if your ears are even supposed to pop every time you swallow...

I remember I used to be able to do this whenever I was coming off of a bad cold which had caused my ears to be plugged - I'd sit there in class doing it over and over and if I did it enough it'd eventually "break through" or something. The popping would become more "full" and eventually my ears would actually pop so that I could hear normally again.

It's definitely one of those things that is hard to explain... If it feels like the first part of a yawn and there is a clicking/squelching sounds, then that's what it feels and sounds like to me

Another way to tell is if you do this while humming. If the humming gets a lot louder when you're doing the "click", then, as far as I know, that means that your tubes are opening.

 

[JRose]

I read about this a while ago but it seemed to be one of those "this is a wacky idea/experimental thing" but now from what I'm seeing it's more accepted as an actual cure. Fascinating.

One thing I just read though is that when they perform the surgery they actually perform an ESS while they do it (Endoscopic Sinus Surgery) and I've noticed that along with my ETD I have bad symptoms of chronic sinusitis... postnasal drip all day every day. I love swallowing mucus!

Anyways, I just read yet another thing over on pubmed that says that a large amount of chronic sinusitis sufferers reported an improvement in ETD-like symptoms after having ESS... so now obviously I'm quite intrigued. Unfortunately I'm poor and ESS is very expensive. Oh well; just another thing to motivate me towards being successful!

Thanks for the hope regardless; it's nice to know there's at least an actual possibility for getting better out there.

Yeah, this surgery is legit. When he was a little one, my brother had chronic ear infections. He had ESS and it got rid of the ear infections.

Basically they make two small holes in the eardrum and place the tubes in them. If the problem was a buildup of fluid behind the eardrum, which is typically why they do the surgery, the tubes help with draining the fluid and allow air to circulate back there. This keeps the fluid from building up. It's a pretty standard procedure that a lot of kids get. There are generally two types of tubes that can be put into place. One kind falls out over time and the other kind are implanted and need to be removed with surgery. Typically the tubes are not meant to be permanent. They act as a way to get the condition under control. Once you're body is able to go through a cycle of infection and fight it off naturally (with the assistance of the tubes), your immune system should have developed the necessary antibodies to fight off future infections.

That being said, from the things I've read about this 20-30% of patients have to have at least a second round of surgery.

I don't know if this would be helpful to your situation if it isn't ear infections that you're suffering from, but it may be something to look into.

Another common reason people have problems with the Eustachian tubes is because their adenoids are inflamed. When that happens they can block the other end of the tubes (near your throat I believe). In some cases people have had to have the adenoids removed, in others getting the inflammation under control takes care of the problem.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the things doctors do, but I generally take their word over a message board full of people with no medical training that think they know better than the people who deal with medical issues everyday.