Some Facts About Q-Tips and Ears

In this week's episode of "Girls" (Season 2; Episode 9 "Girls Gets Dark"), Hannah grappling with OCD, inserted a Q-tip deep into her ear canal and "heard air hiss out the hole" due to perforating her eardrum.

Although this scene came out of a TV show, this scenario is not uncommon and results in many ENT office visits every month for not only eardrum perforations, but bleeding due to trauma to the ear canal skin.

Some facts about Q-tips as it relates to the ear...

It should never be used to clean earwax within the ear canal. In fact, on Unilever's website (the maker of Q-tips), the company explicitly states that Q-tips should only be used to "gently around the outer ear, without entering the ear canal." [link]

In fact, the word "ear" appears less than a dozen times on the entire Q-tip website.

Apparently, Q-tips are meant for many other uses beyond ears which play only a very small role in the world of Q-tips.

• Cleaning tiny spaces in ventilator grates
• Applying polishes to silverware
• Dust picture frames
• Clean keyboards and the computer screen
• Applying wood stain
• Clean tracks and grooves of medicine cabinets
• Clean small compartments of washing machines
etc, etc, etc

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Negative Ear Pressure Causing Inability to Pop a Clogged Ear

Have you ever closed the lid on an air-tight container containing a left-over hot meal and stuck it in the refrigerator? And than when you try to open the lid the next day once that hot meal cools down, it is REALLY hard to open the lid because of the accumulated negative pressure? In essence, the negative pressure has "locked" the lid down.

Well, something similar can also potentially happen inside the ear with eustachian tube dysfunction, especially with negative pressure (rather than positive pressure).

Eustachian tube dysfunction is a phenomenon whereby a person is unable to pop their ears to relieve symptoms of ear pressure, clogging, or fullness. It is much akin to the ear pressure a person experiences when flying, but at ground level. Traditionally, treatment of this condition involved medications like steroid nasal sprays and prednisone along with active valsalva (watch video below). Once medical treatment has failed, ear tube placement has been the step of last resort.

The question some patients have is WHY does it become so hard to get an ear to pop open with eustachian tube dysfunction...

It may be that the mucosal lining of the eustachian tube has swelled to the point that there is no opening present.

There may also be a physical obstruction blocking the eustachian tube due to large adenoids, nasal polyps, or some other nasal mass.

However, a lesser known phenomenon is due to the negative pressure itself creating a suction effect on the lining of the eustachian tube analagous to the stuck container lid mentioned in the first paragraph. The middle ear negative pressure itself may be literally "sucking" the lining of the eustachian tube closed. If the negative pressure is great enough, it may be very hard to get it open.

When this happens, the eustachian tube becomes "locked".

One can "mimic" this effect even in a healthy individual (not that anybody would want to try). When a swimmer dives deep into the water, some ear pain will start to develop due to the negative pressure building up in the middle ear. If the swimmer does not ear pop and continues to go deeper into the water, at around 3.9 feet, it may start to get very difficult to get the ear to pop open even with effort. At around 5 feet of water depth, it will become impossible to pop the ear open. Normally, swimmers and SCUBA divers continuously ear pop when diving at depth to prevent any ear discomfort.

As such, in situations where negative ear pressure is present and medications fail to resolve the ear clogging, a hole can be surgically made in the eardrum WITHOUT tube placement which will often resolve the symptoms fairly quickly. The hole "releases" the negative pressure to allow the eustachian tube to function normally. The analogy would be that once you release the negative pressure within an air-tight container, it becomes very easy to remove the lid thereafter.

The eardrum hole typically heals closed in a few weeks and the clogged ear sensation will often not come back. If it does, the myringotomy (surgically creating a eardrum hole) can be repeated and if necessary, a tube can be placed to prevent the body from healing the hole closed anytime soon.



Some things that have helped some people to pop their ears:

 

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How is a Hole in the Eardrum Repaired?

If a hole in the eardrum does not heal closed and a decision has been made to pursue repairing a hole in the eardrum (also known as tympanic membrane perforation), it is not uncommon for patients to get confused among the different surgical techniques used to fix it.

There are 3 major "flavors" of eardrum hole repair. 

• Paper patch: Paper patch technique involves putting a thin membrane (film paper, gelfoam, etc) OVER the eardrum hole.
• Medial or Underlay Tympanoplasty: In the underlay technique (also known as medial tympanoplasty), patient's own tissue (temporalis fascia) is used as a graft to reconstruct the eardrum by laying it UNDER the eardrum and ear canal wall skin.
• Lateral or Overlay Tympanoplasty: In the overlay technique (also known as lateral tympanoplasty), patient's own tissue (temporalis fascia) is used as a graft to reconstruct the eardrum by laying it OVER the eardrum extending from placement UNDER the ear canal wall skin.

Technically, the paper patch is easiest to perform and the overlay tympanoplasty the most technically difficult to perform.

There is a fourth type you can read about here.

SO... here's what a normal ear looks like (image by Chittka and Brockmann modified from Wikipedia):

Here's a hole in the eardrum:

Paper patch technique (graft shown as a purple strip). Note the paper patch is laying OVER the ear canal skin and eardrum.

Medial or Underlay Tympanoplasty: Note the graft is laying UNDER the ear canal skin and eardrum.

Lateral or Overlay Tympanoplasty: Note the graft is laying UNDER the ear canal skin and OVER the eardrum.

Read more about eardrum holes and a fourth type of repair here.

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Why Does the Nose Whistle in Some People?

Though most people like the professional nose whistler shown here require an instrument to enable the nose to whistle, in others it occurs naturally due to unique anatomic features within the nose.

Why might someone's nose whistle?

Septal Perforation

The most common reason it may occur constantly is due to a hole in the septum (septal perforation). The septum is a wall that divides the right nasal cavity from the left side. Normally, it should be straight and without any openings.

However, when a hole is present in the septum and it is in just the right size and place, whenever air is breathed in and out the nose, it will whistle. In this situation, the hole is the "window" of the whistle and the nose itself is the mouthpiece.

Correction of this problem is by either closing the hole (septal button or surgery) or making it bigger such that the aerodynamics eliminate the conditions conducive to nasal whistling. As an FYI, surgical correction of a septal perforation is quite difficult.

Septal Deviation and Some Nasal Congestion

The other situation when the nose may whistle, but only intermittently, is when there is a deviated septum. In this scenario, the septum rather than being straight, it is slightly crooked to one side making one side more narrow than the other.

Add some slight swelling of the nasal lining such that the opening of the nose is restricted to just right size and shape, and it may whistle.

This type of nasal whistling is akin to grass whistling (blowing between two thumbs holding a blade of grass).

Thankfully, the nasal conditions that lead to nasal whistling is quite rare and requires the perfect storm of just the right amount of septal deviation with just the right amount of nasal congestion.

As such, correction of this problem is fairly easy as one needs to change either the congestion causing the nasal lining to swell with a nasal spray or anti-histamine OR fix the deviated septum. If the inferior turbinates are enlarged, they can be reduced in size as well.

Of course, one can take this unusual condition and make it a positive feature worthy of a concert hall... WITHOUT the assistance of any instrument!

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