EAR, CLOGGED FEELING IN
Description and Possible Medical Problems
You know how you feel when you’re on a plane and coming in for a landing or driving down a mountain: your ears suddenly feel clogged. Usually, a good swallow or two will take care of it.
But what if this doesn’t help? A clogged sensation in your ear is frequently caused by an accumulation of earwax and has a simple solution. In most cases, you can even take care of it yourself.
Treatment
First, check to see if your ear is filled with earwax, or cerumen. Take a windup clock and see if you hear the ticking at the same volume in both ears. Another trick is to hum. If you can hear the humming louder on one side, that’s the side with the accumulation of wax. If you do find that one ear is filled with earwax, fill an eyedropper with mineral oil and place a few drops in the ear daily for a few days until the wax plug softens. Then flush out the wax with warm water in a plastic syringe.
There is a new device available that eliminates the painful ear¬aches that are due to pressure changes on ascent or descent. They are called “Earplanes” and look like a small set of earplugs. They can be purchased in drugstores and airports.
Special Mention for the Elderly
In the elderly, earwax can actually accumulate for years through inatten¬tion. The cerumen can become hard as a rock in some cases. This requires medical attention to remove the wax and avoid aggravating the chronic infection that usually accompanies a large accumulation of hard¬ened earwax.
There’s always the possibility that a bug has crawled into your ear or that a plug of cotton from an ear swab has dislodged and became stuck in your ear canal. Gently flushing the ear with mineral oil followed by water will probably do the trick for either problem. If you have no luck, contact your physician immediately and have her dislodge the offender. Don’t poke around yourself; you may puncture the eardrum.
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