nick116

Evening all,

Where to begin… About 3 weeks ago I woke up and my right ear was blocked and I couldn’t hear anything, over the week it cleared a little and I could hear. I had some tinnitus in that ear too! I then went on holiday, flying from the Uk to Spain and I had no problems while I was there (probably due to the heat). Ive come back to the Uk and over the last week not only have i still got the low very quiet tinnitus in the right ear but now a ringing in my left.

When I blow though my nose (valsalva maneuver) the ringing in my left ear stops but the right ear gets louder and then when I do the opposite (suck in) the ringing in my left ear gets louder and the right ear gets quieter. As you can imagine, trying to balance both ears at night is somewhat tricky.

Ive been to the doctors and they’ve said its likely to be blocked Eustacian tubes and told me to try nasal sprays and putting my head over a pan of boiling water with some decongestant in. This has worked a little but nothing much has helped. How can i tell ive blocked these tubes?

I’m getting annoyed by the ringing and I cant seem to pop my right ear (it did pop once a few days back and the ringing stopped but that was after a full on boiling water decongestant session!

Could this become a permanent thing? Is my constant Valsalva manuvers making it worse – should I stop doing it?

Or how long does this take to sort itself out and is there anything else I can do? Im losing sleep and its driving me slowly mad :-)

Any ideas or support welcome. Thanks