Have you experienced loosing hearing because of dry skin attached to the eardrum?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I lost nearly all hearing in my left ear a few weeks ago. I thought it was ear wax. I have to get it removed every few years.

This time there was very little wax. Instead, the ENT found dry, flaky skin attached to my drumhead. (eardrum). He tried the suction vac. It didn’t budge that stuff. He had to scrape it off with instruments. It came off in several pieces. He finally stopped after scraping for about 15 mins. He said about 70% was removed.

What’s remaining will continue to loosen and shift around on my eardrum. I’ll lose hearing again and will have to go back for more scraping.

Yes, it hurt a little. It felt weird having a blade scrape deep inside my ear. But it’s worth some discomfort to regain hearing.

Has anyone else had this happen? I had never heard of anything like this. Usually it’s just packed earwax.

2

I guess this is what I have. The ENT didn’t use the medical term. But this certainly matches what he said was wrong.

I have had several ear infections in the past two years. I saw my ENT two years ago because of ear pain and clogged eustachian tube.

3

I also used to have a problem with ear wax build up but not so much in recent years. I have, however, experienced “itchy” ear canal and have had flaky skin in that area.

4

Never had that happen. But I go twice a year for earwax to be removed.

It’s mainly my right ear. I guess the ear canal has a weird bend in it and it gets packed pretty quick. I could buy ear wax removal kits or use hydrogen peroxide, but the ear doctor I go to says I’m better off just letting her do it.

Besides, insurance covers it (except the deductibles) so it only costs me a hundred bucks a year to have it done.

And I don’t have to worry about the kits softening up the wax and then me having problems trying to get it out.

5

FWIW, there are a bunch of videos on You Tube of people having these skin overgrowths removed. I knew about earwax buildup, but not this. Yikes.

6

Back when I used to see an ENT twice a year, he’d pick all the earwax out while he was making small talk at the beginning of the visit. I stopped seeing him years ago and never really thought about it again until about two or three years back when I had an issue. Everything was fine, I was going about my day when out of nowhere my hearing just ‘turned off’ in one ear. I could still hear my voice (inside my head) and could hear myself chewing so I figured it wasn’t a problem with the nerve, but it still had me worried. After a week or so, I made an appointment with my GP, he did what he could and sent me off to an ENT. The ENT got it cleared up. All in all, I was ‘deaf’ in one ear for about 3 weeks.
A year or so later it happened again, but this time my GP got it cleaned out.
The next time it happened, I went on Amazon and bought the same thing my GP used. It’s just a squirt bottle with a hose on the end of it. Any time I’m noticing a problem, I put some drops in my ear, let them soak for a few minutes, go to town with squirt bottle filled with very warm water and then gross myself out when I see all the chunks of wax falling out of my ear.

This isn’t the exact kit I have, but it’s the same idea. Running a couple bottles of warm water through my ear (with a decent amount of force) always fixes the problem.