Serious Ear Problem

[griswold]

I wanted to post this to help others avoid my mistake. For some background, I grew up shallow freediving in the Keys. The vast majority was in 20 feet or less. I would estimate 5 years at 100 days per year with say 100 shallow dives per day – so say approximately 50,000 times that I have been down 15 feet.

You can imagine my surprise when I learned yesterday that the “moderate to severe hearing loss” (doc’s term) in my right ear is most likely permanent.

3 weeks ago I was freediving in a pool that is 15’ deep, helping with a rescue diver class and working on weighting 2 spearguns I built. I was coming off a head cold, and had a little trouble clearing. I didn’t clear until I was down about 8 or 10 feet. I didn’t think anything of it at the time and there was no pain. My ears did feel like they completely filled with water. I was in the water for about 90 minutes and when everyone got out I jumped off the 10 meter platform twice. I didn’t land badly and didn’t think anything of it.

Afterward, it felt like I had water in my ear that wouldn’t come out no matter what I tried. The ringing started the next day. A week later I finally went to see an ear quack. No damage to the eardrum, no fluid behind the eardrum, severe hearing loss. Diagnosis – inner ear barotrauma. Basically nothing they can do but give me a steroid and see if it comes back. Two weeks later, hearing test shows very little improvement.

Moral of the story - start clearing your ears before you even get in the water. You will know whether or not they are acting up. If they are, don’t dive!!!! While in the water, clear your ears on the surface, before diving down. I had read this any number of times, but didn’t practice it.

 

[Erik]

Thanks griswold, I hope your ears come back.
Peace,
Erik Y.

 

[Fondueset]

Worth noting that EF recommends in his splendid Frenzel doc - going down 10 or 12 feet then clearning - to test if you have frenzel down.
Sounds like this may be dangerous (I cannot tell you how many times I've gone 8 or 10 feet without clearing - it's allways been very easy for me though) I have tinnitus with teensy hf loss in one ear - probably from a firecracker in high school. Computers make the tinnitus worse. Nobody here thinks it's from diving.

 

[Adrian]

Chris, are you serious about computers making tinnitus worse? How? It's news to me.

Adrian

 

[Fondueset]

I can sometimes actually hear it getting worse when I am reading on a computer screen. According to TCM computers mess with your liver energy. The TCM guy i see here seems to think my tinnitus is related to this.

It definitely waxes and wanes with my overall energy level. And does not seem to either abate or increases in association with diving or not. (though my awareness can - particularly with the bay being so quiet in the winter time.

I would say, based on my observations that in my own case computer useage definitely plays a role.

There is also the idea that everyone has tinnitus - but for one reason or another some of us get tuned into it.

 

[SpearoPimp]

i suffered a barotrauma in a pool while freedive training w/ a head cold about a year ago, that ears hearing is a little worse but they can't tell if it was like that before. my tinnitus was really bad after the barotrauma but faded after a few weeks back to its normal level (from years of drumming). I learned the lesson that day to never ever force clearing or dive if i can't clear welll that day, i never notice my tinnitus unless i listen for it...ive pretty much forgotten that its there.