Ear wax and scuba diving don’t mix
September 28, 2004So I found out the hard way that ear wax and scuba diving don’t mix. After my scuba class on Sunday, I realized I was having trouble hearing. It wasn’t too noticeable at first, but when I got home and turned on the TV I realized something was wrong. Because in order to hear the TV I had to turn up the volume level to 55, when normally by the time it hits 45 it’s so loud I can hear it in the basement.
Clearly something was wrong. At first I thought maybe I had water trapped in my ears, so I got a bottle of those drying drops for swimmers. No luck. Well, maybe it’s just a bit of ear wax so then I went and got a bottle of ear-wax remover (with a handy blue bulb included to flush water in your ear). But a couple treatments and still no improvement.
By now I’m starting to get panicky. What if I’ve busted my ear drums or something? Bye bye scuba class, hello hearing aid. I seriously considered going to the emergency room, but I didn’t have any pain, there was no blood or anything. And in retrospect I’m glad I didn’t because I would have felt like an idiot.
So yesterday (Monday) I had to stay home in the morning anyway, to meet the furnace guy. That was an experience, because I had to listen very carefully to hear him. And I had to be careful not to shout my replies. But once he had finished his maintenance inspection and re-lit the pilot light, I turned the volume on my cell phone to maximum and made an appointment with my doctor.
He squeezed me in Monday afternoon, and it turns out I was on the right trail. It was ear wax, but apparently so compacted by the diving that the ear-wax drops weren’t nearly enough. So he had the nurse irrigate my ears. This involves what looks like a metallic version of a turkey baster–the nurse fills it with warm water, she has the patient (me) hold a plastic basin under the ear, and then she injects the water full blast. In my case she had to go a couple times in each ear, eventually popping out a big gross plug of ear wax from each ear.
The lesson–try to keep the ears clean if you’re going to take up scuba diving. But don’t use cotton swabs–doc said they could just compact the wax further. And if the worse does happen don’t panic, just get your ears irrigated by a cute nurse.
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