Help! Serious Ear Problems

Ears, nose and throat
1

Hello,

Just wondered if anyone has experienced any of the following ear problems?

I'm a 26 year old woman who has had 9 operations on my right ear in the past 4 years.

Cut the long story short, my right ear is slightly smaller than my left ear (which touchwood works perfectly). At the time of my birth, the doctors confirmed there were no abnormalities in my right ear. As I got older I had a bit of skin in my middle ear that kept growing, doctors couldn't operate on me as a child as they said it would paralyse half my face.

At 20/21 years of age, I had severe chlostestomia and had surgery. The ENT removed skin and bone that had grown in my ear canal and did a reconstruction. Most of the bone in my middle ear had eroded due to the chlostestomia too.

Since then I've had various operations to improve hearing, such as; a titanium implant to improve hearing, making my ear canal bigger because the ear canal keeps closing up, skin graft from my leg used in my ear to help me hear better and removing skin from behind my ear that grows keloids after operations etc.

My actual eardrum is fine it's the middle ear and ear canal that are causing the problems. I was originally 90% deaf in my right ear and after the operations it increased to 60% deafness but as my ear canal attempts to close up each time, the deafness increases once more.

I had 6 operations last year, 1 month apart under general anaesthetic. On my 3rd operation last year after returning to my hospital bed, I had continuous seizures for 30 minutes and my heart stopped. ENT put it down to low vitamin D and anxiety attacks.

Since then, I've had seizures and severe panic attacks on several occasions, rushed to A&E on 2 occasions.

After many tests, it has been confirmed that I suffer from reactive hypoglycaemia and anxiety as well.

Most days I have intense fatigue, headaches, earaches in my right ear, dizziness, confused and low moods.

I'm undergoing tests with a neurologist to monitor the activity in my brain too.

Sorry for the long message but your help would be much appreciated. I'm starting to lose hope.

J x

2

Omg, you've been through the mill abit how can ent say anxiety causes seizures and your heart to stop? Surly there's more to it than that.

I have for the past 3 years suffered ear issues, which have caused weird pressure like headaches and sinus issues and jawache,toothache and blurry vision.

I hate when they ask me if I'm suffering anxiety, of course I am bit that's not the cause of my symptoms my symptoms cause the anxiety!

Fedup with being past from pillar to post.. I hate feeling this way.

3

Hi Emma,

Thanks for the reply and sorry to hear that you're having a rough time.

I don't think non-sufferers actually know the extent of ear problems. It controls so many important factors like your balance etc. Ongoing problems are such a nightmare and really can affect your day to day life.

The funny thing is, before my heart stopped in the hospital, my anxiety was brought on because of the seizures and not before.

When I have an earache I seem to get an eye ache too on the same side. ENT said that the two aren't connected but I think there's more to it.

Hope you get better soon and keep me posted xx

4

I've seen 2 ents, neurologist, dentists, maxillofacial specialist and being referred again to another ent. I won't rest till I've had a proper diagnosis and got help for the symptoms, I keep getting fluid and bubbles behind my ear drums mainly the right one. Dr I last seen thinks it's a eustation tube problem.

Here's hoping for Some help at last

I know they are professionals but we know our own bodies, and I've seen Alot on here that discuss exactly the same symptoms... We can't all be making it up.

5

You'd think they'd listen to their patients rather textbooks.

Fingers crossed you get this all sorted out 😊