Hello everyone, first post on here.
I've been freediving for about 2 years give or take. This last may I was out with a friend diving in some beautiful cold BC water and I think I did something that left me with permanent hearing loss and ear ringing.
I was diving out to around 40 feet repeatedly and I started having troubles equalizing in the right ear. It felt like muscus or something had block it suddenly and I couldn't push through. Stupidly, stupidly - stupidly - I just sort of dealt with it and kept diving. It wasn't really painful, but I almost had to keep the pressure of my ears through slight constant valsalva to make my right ear cooperate. I did a couple dives like this. On an ascent after doing this I noticed a distinct ringing in my right ear the second I surfaced. Over the next few weeks I had a fullness in my ear that I couldn't get rid of. I saw a doctor who couldn't see anything and gave me an appointment in OCTOBER (this was june) to see an ENT.
The fullness went away but now I am left with tinnitus in my ear that is present whenever the room is quiet, or I think of it. I finally got to see the ENT who hardly looked at me and then just told me that if I have tinnitus I should just get used to it and there was nothing to be done. I took a hearing test that showed a strong drop off above 5k that is very noticeable if I rub my fingers next to each ear.
Did I just kill the hearing in my right ear, and give myself a permanent freaking annoying ringing for the rest of my life in one dive??
Thanks for any info you can offer
I've been freediving for about 2 years give or take. This last may I was out with a friend diving in some beautiful cold BC water and I think I did something that left me with permanent hearing loss and ear ringing.
I was diving out to around 40 feet repeatedly and I started having troubles equalizing in the right ear. It felt like muscus or something had block it suddenly and I couldn't push through. Stupidly, stupidly - stupidly - I just sort of dealt with it and kept diving. It wasn't really painful, but I almost had to keep the pressure of my ears through slight constant valsalva to make my right ear cooperate. I did a couple dives like this. On an ascent after doing this I noticed a distinct ringing in my right ear the second I surfaced. Over the next few weeks I had a fullness in my ear that I couldn't get rid of. I saw a doctor who couldn't see anything and gave me an appointment in OCTOBER (this was june) to see an ENT.
The fullness went away but now I am left with tinnitus in my ear that is present whenever the room is quiet, or I think of it. I finally got to see the ENT who hardly looked at me and then just told me that if I have tinnitus I should just get used to it and there was nothing to be done. I took a hearing test that showed a strong drop off above 5k that is very noticeable if I rub my fingers next to each ear.
Did I just kill the hearing in my right ear, and give myself a permanent freaking annoying ringing for the rest of my life in one dive??
Thanks for any info you can offer