Kissing the Ear Can Cause Permanent Hearing Loss

MSNBC reported 3/29/12 about a phenomenon called cochlear ear-kiss injury. This condition is when hearing loss occurs after a person kisses someone else over the ear, usually a mom over a baby's or child's ear.

Right after the kiss, a person can suffer from immediate and potentially permanent hearing loss along with other symptoms including ringing, sensitivity to sound, sound distortion, and aural fullness.

How or why does this occur?

With a kiss, a strong suction is created within the ear canal that pulls on the eardrum which tugs on the middle ear bones that can lead to turbulence within the inner ear.

Infants are particularly susceptible to this condition given their ear canals are SO small and the suction created by an adult kiss over the ear can be so strong.

There are other variations of this type of ear/hearing injury.

Barotrauma of the ear can lead to similar type issues due to sudden pressure changes from flying, parachute jumping, diving into water, SCUBA, snorkeling, etc.

Getting slapped over the ear can do the same thing as cochlear ear-kiss injury, but in reverse. Rather than suction from a kiss creating strong negative pressure within the ear canal, a slap over the ear creates sudden strong positive pressure.

At times, such pressure changes can get so severe that the eardrum can rupture.

Source:
Innocent 'kiss of deaf' can cause permanent hearing loss. MSNBC 3/29/12

The kiss of deaf: Four-year-old's big smooch left her mom with partial hearing loss. Newsday. June 7, 2008

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How to Make Xylitol Nasal Flush at Home

Given the unusually large reader response to my last blog regarding xylitol nasal rinses regarding the "recipe," I thought it easier to write a blog about it!!!

To be brief, xylitol is a naturally-occurring plant-based sugar substitute that apparently has all sorts of anti-bacterial as well as anti-fungal properties. Given these properties, daily xylitol gum chewingor xylitol nasal sprayuse has been shown to help prevent recurrent acute ear infections and sinus infections... safe for use even in infants.

When used as part of nasal flushes to the nose, it seems to work even better than traditional saline flushes to the nose (read more about this here).

So, I have provided below a few different recipes to make xylitol nasal flushes at home. One may be more comfortable than the other, but it is user dependent. Obviously, convenience will play a role as well.

Just as an FYI, you can also purchase pre-packaged packets that contain xylitol for the ultimate convenience. Just open one packet and mix it in with water inside your nasal flush kit of choice (Nasopure, Neti Pot, Neilmed, etc)

Recipe #1 (Complex):
1 cup of water (8 ounces)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp of xylitol crystals
1/4 tsp baking soda
4 drops of grapefruit seed extract

Recipe #2:

1 cup of water (8 ounces)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp of xylitol crystals

Recipe #3:

1 cup of water (8 ounces)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp of xylitol crystals

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Even Kids Can Spot Adult Bull^!#$& ... And Publish It in a Medical Journal!

Though often adults find kids to lack intellectual rigor and devoid of rational thought, sometimes it's the other way around.

Take Emma Rosa, age 9, who debunked the idea of therapeutic touch back in 1998. She watched a TV program about nurses who practise “Therapeutic Touch”, claiming they can detect and manipulate “human energy field” by hovering their hands above a patient. Emma recognized this adult nonsense and conducted a scientific study for a 4th grade science fair to not only prove it, but also publish her results in a peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA. She found that 21 experienced practitioners of therapeutic touch were unable to no more than chance able to detect a human hand under their right or left hand hidden by a screen (so the therapist can't see).

There are other instances where kids have similarly debunked quack medical treatments, though not necessarily published in a scientific journal. Take Rhys Morgan, age 15, who after being diagnosed with Crohn's disease and while internet searching on this topic to educate himself, came across Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) that claimed to cure not only Crohn's, but also cancer, Aids, malaria, and basically most things short of actual death. Being 15, he was able to do his own research to evaluate this "amazing" treatment through which he discovered that MMS is in essence industrial bleach. Rhys has since campaigned hard to eliminate MMS.

Beyond quackery, I often see it in my ENT clinic where elementary school-aged kids offer utterly profound observations that go way beyond their years.

In a time when potential leaders and politicians are espousing claims in the media that lack rational thought and intellectual rigor (watch the news) and even the educational system is being attacked for teaching scientific principles like evolution in favor of Biblical explanations, I sometimes wonder if we need children like Emma Rosa and Rhys Morgan to come to our rescue even if we are adults who should know better.


Reference:
A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch. JAMA. 1998;279(13):1005-1010. doi: 10.1001/jama.279.13.1005

The man who encourages the sick and dying to drink industrial bleach. Guardian.co.uk Wednesday 15 September 2010 07.30 EDT

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