Spent a large part of today sitting in a waiting room for a doctor to take a look at my right ear, which has been stopped up since Saturday. Despite arriving 20 minutes early for my 11:30 appointment, I didn’t actually get seen by the doctor until around 1pm. After looking, he decided that I really needed to see an ENT to get the blockage scoped out. No one they could contact to refer me to had an appointment earlier than tomorrow morning, so I’m still effectively deaf in one ear. This isn’t painful, but it is somewhat disconcerting. As a musician and music lover, the thought of losing my hearing is one of the more terrifying ailments I can imagine. I imagine that a good irrigation will leave me just fine, but until then it’s strange and I don’t like it.
I must remember to take my own book tomorrow. The elderly magazine selection (According to Newsweek, there was a break-in at the Watergate building. Someone should look into that!) was barely adequate to keep me interested for a 90 minute waiting room stay.
Truth is, I just don’t like going to see doctors. I don’t actually dislike doctors. Heck, I have good friends who are doctors, but I prefer to limit my exposure to them to social occasions, and not spend much time with them in their professional capacity. I think a lot of this is a result of the continuing failure after three years to solve my sinus troubles. Nonetheless, I’ll be glad to get this done with and go back to my reasonably healthy life.
peteralway
I had a seriously plugged up ear that was essentially totally deaf for a couple of days, and it did freak me out. The doctor gave me atomic decongestants, and I was normal in a few days. But It was really confusing dealing with people in crowded Post Office because A, I couldn’t tell who was talking to me (“next please!” Who? What? Where?), and B, I couldn’t do the usual filtering out of all the crowd noise. It was really quite disorienting--I really felt like I understood the confused old men I’ve seen that appear so utterly disoriented in completely ordinary situations. I had no clue how important stereo hearing really is. I also discovered that there are some parts of the accoustical spectrum that are bad in each ear--together they fill in the gaps quite well, but with one ear, it was ugly, and hard to enjoy music.
I wish you well in recovering your hearing.
cflute
Sorry to hear about the ear. Scary, indeed! I hope you and the doc(s) get it sorted out tomorrow.
Have you checked out the Sinufix that I sent you the info on a while back? If not, consider this a gentle reminder.
*HUGS* — Callie
poltr1
For clearing sinuses, a friend of mine swears by cleaning his sinuses twice a day using salt water and a Water Pik. I don’t know how he does it, and I don’t think I’d want to contemplate it, but he said it’s been the #1 thing to help him stay healthy for the past several years.
Would this help with clogged ears? I cannot say.
kightp
I don’t generally have sinus or ear problems, so I was startled as hell a few years ago when I woke up one morning deaf in one ear.
It turned out to be nothing more than, for lack of a better phrase, petrified ear wax. A week of drops to soften it and a good irrigation by the nurse practitioner did the trick, but it was a strange and disconnected week.
(Note: Make sure they use warm water to flush out your ear. Mine got distracted and used cold, which produced a weird sort of hypothermic state until I meekly -- and woozily -- asked “is this normal?”)