ruptured eardrum

[jeepn]

took an average fall barefooting thursday night. except for the part where i landed right on my ear. i ruptured my left eardrum. went to the doctor and he gave me antibiotic drops to put in for the next 10 days.

does anybody here ruptured their eardrum before. how long should i expect it to bother me? it doesn't hurt anymore, but the congested feeling and crappy hearing is starting to drive me nuts.

[talbertini]

Not me personally but my skiing partner did it @3 years ago and it took him @6wks to get back to normal

[AbunDiga909]

I have never either, but one of the main reasons the pro foilers say beginners learning inverts MUST have the ear pieces ON their helmets is for this exact reason. You are more likely, they said, to rupture your eardrum than have any other sort of damage--assuming you stay clear of the rope and your feet stay put...

[M3Fan]

I am the eardrum rupture king. I've had 4 so far- 3 from barefooting, one from a watergun. You'll be in a tremendous amount of pain for a while, but the pain will go away soon. You may have some discharge from the ear as well- this is normal. Your recovery time depends on the size of the perforation. Sometimes a small tear will heal almost instantly, but will get infected anyway. That was what happened last time for me, and it was cleared up in 2 weeks. If you go out again, and water gets in through a hole again, it will get infected without a doubt. The biggest perforation I had was about 20%, and I had noticable hearing loss during that one. That took about 4 weeks to heal up. Check back with the doc next week and see if it has healed. You can only rupture them so many times before they do not heal anymore, and then you will need a tympanoplasty (sp) to insert an artificial eardrum! So from now on, get a Pro Tec Wake Ace helmet with ear flaps. You can also try to buy some Doc's Pro Plugs which are vented ear plugs for watersports. They are designed for water impact. However, the last time this happened one flew out right before hitting the water, so it did no good.

[Andrew]

M3Fan, i'll take ur crown now. i have atleast two ruptured tympanic membranes a year. i've got an everlasting stock of pain reducing and antibiotic drops. and yeah, they hurt like a biotch but it is well worth it

i've never heard of the limit on the number of ruptures :shock: i might need to find a way to prevent this. a tympanostomy, or whatever it is called can't be fun :evil:

[slaker38]

jeepn, I too have ruptured my eardrum barefooting. Same story, just an average fall only I hit square on my left ear. Not a lot of "pain" just a very warm sensation around the entire ear. My biggest fear was of an infection caused by water introduced into the middle ear, luckily that did not happen. I experienced muffled hearing for a week or two but the hole actually closed by about noon the next day, that was a good thing as I had to go on an airliner the next day and had no problems from the pressure change. Within a few weeks hearing was completely normal. How soon yours will heal is an individual case, it depends on how large the hole is, most likely it is tiny and will close within a day or two, until it heals closed be extremely careful not to intruduce water into the ear, this can carry bacteria to the inner ear (not good). My doctor advised not to put anything into the ear even antibiotics as this could contaminate it and it would likely heal on its own very quickly. This wasn't my first issue with ruptured ear drums and in the past I had a tympanoplasty that was unrelated to an injury. Not a lot of fun but in the end very successful.
Keep it clean and it should not be a problem.