this happens to me too. it doesn’t quite hurt… but i find it annoying that i keep doing it, its a bad habit for me.
This effect can be achieved by the Valsalva maneuver, but I think those of us who can do the Voluntary Tubal Opening thing aren’t resorting to exhaling against pinched-shut nostrils, we’re just clicking our tubes.
I can do it. Not only does my voice get louder, but external noises get quieter. I’ll sometimes use the technique to quiet some loud noise. It only works temporarily though. The muscle gets tired after a few seconds for me.
I can’t find the previous reference to the “rumbly-noised thing”. Do you mean tensing the muscles in your ears to make a sound like a cattle stampede? Cause I can do that, too. I thought everyone could. Is it just us?
Count me in with the Voluntary Tubal Opening…
Sometimes when I’m exercising really hard they’re kind of get ‘stuck’ open like teela brown. This is excruciatingly distracting and a little uncomfortable (I feel like the base of my tubes are getting dried out and cold from my breath.)
Reading thru the thread, I’m not sure that anyone else here can do precisely what I do.
That would be disturbing, so I hope I’m wrong.
Can anyone else change their ear pressure – and the volume of external sounds – without tensing their jaw at all, and without pinching their nostrils, but simply by breathing in (to make things quiet) or out (to make things louder) through the nose in a particular way?
I wish I could get more exact than “in a particular way” but I can’t. I can do it with my mouth closed or open, jaw tensed or relaxed. I have no idea what’s going on physically when I do this. I just know that a particular way of breathing in or out through my nostrils accomplishes this.
As a result, I can adjust to changes in pressure – like in an airplane – at any time.
And as someone else noted, I seem to be more sensitive to pressure changes than most folks.
ETA: When I’m ill sometimes I lose this ability. It’s very annoying because it usually means everything is stuck on loud, and I normally keep my ears in the quiet position. When I can’t control my ear pressure, even a phone ringing is piercingly loud, to the point of being almost painful.
I have to use a muscle. It’s not my jaw muscle though. I can keep it motionless. I don’t have to breathe in or out to open them either though. Breathing in seems to raise the pressure (kind of uncomfortable). Breathing out is the same as not breathing at all. Your description sounds slightly different. You don’t tense anything in your throat?
There was a previous thread about this. I think everyone can do it, yes. I get the rumbly noise quite often when I yawn, but I can also do it voluntarily. It seems to use a muscle of some sort as I can ony keep it going for a certain length of time before I have to “relax” it and start it up again.
No, no tension in the throat, and I have to breath in/out through my nose. There is some very slight tension, but it feels like it’s somewhere between my nasal sinuses and my ears.
I’m so glad i found this site! I’ve been able to do this since i was a kid, and no-one believed me…until one day i held a sensitive microphone to my ear and played a tune with the clicks! Now they believe me!! I can do it any time i wish without moving anything or breathing differently. I can also make a rumble for a few seconds. I have never met anyone else who can do this.
Can making my ears click do any damage? If i click for a few times, my inner ear can feel sore.
I have swum since I was about 6-7 months old, and can clear my ears at any time. I also can do the tongue curl, am a taster of that chemical in biology class, have AB neg blood. Not genetic but I can also vomit at whim [thanks to a combination of several shots at pregnancy induced morning sickness and chemo induced nausea. I basically open my mouth, concentrate, and yarp. Oddly enough, I can also hold off from vomiting for up to 5 minutes, which lets me make a break for someplace I can vomit without spreading it all over the floor and making a mess.]
It actually feels like the opposite of the Valsalva maneuver, for me at least. The maneuver always seems to overpressurize my ears, and then I use the voluntary method to decrease it back to tolerable levels. Exactly equal is usually not what I want.
The breath-in version sound more like you are intentionally opening the tubes while breathing in, adding air pressure, and but closing off before it can leave. I don’t have that much control over it–I can’t breath in or out while doing it.
Yes, I can do this also by moving something in the back of my throat. I can also make the middle knuckle of my little fingers crack without touching them. 
My husband can do it. I can sort of do it, but only on the right side.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have finally found this discussion. I have gone to sooooo many ear doctors trying to explain to them this “control” I have over constantly being able to pop/open my ears when I feel them closing up just by doing something with the back of my throat and hearing a clicking sound. NOBODY knows what I am talking about and they think that I am crazy. It killllllls me when I get congested and lose this control/ability because then I can’t just automatically pop them when they get clogged. And I am very sensitive to pressure changes (even slight hill or short elevator ride will make my ears close). Recently I have been a little congested and I woke up the other morning not being able to do it at all. It’s driving me crazy. Anyone have any suggestions on how to get it back? I can’t make that normal flexing at the back of my throat like I could before.
One of my deceased threads has been re-animated! I feel honored.
I, also, can lose control when I get congested. It’s like the muscle doesn’t quite get the tubes open enough for air to flow. If I pinch my nose and pull the muscle while trying to blow out I can often get the air to “punch through” into the ear. I have to be careful because I sometimes end up with too high a pressure stuck in my ears. Punching through the other way - by sucking through pinched nostrils - can also work, but more rarely.
I once went to my doctor because I had a persistent, watery, squishing sound at my eardrum. She didn’t see anything though her scope and suggested that I was just congested. I felt like saying, “I’m acutely aware of what congestion does to my ears; this is something different.” But I knew that would be too hard to explain, and just let it pass.
Just chiming in to say I can do it too. In fact, I once had someone put there ear up against mine to see if they could hear it ‘clicking’ but they couldn’t (or didn’t know what they were listening for, it sure sounds audible to me). If they’re really bad I still have to pop them the normal way by plugging my nose and ‘blowing’ through it. But it is nice to be able to do it that way when I have a cold and they constantly need popping.
I know I’m over the worst of a cold when I can pop my ears again.
Ugh, thank CHRIST I’m not alone!
But yes, I have terrible problems when I get a cold, because instantly they’ll be at the wrong pressure, dulling all external sounds, and i’ll lose the ability to equalise it. I can still “pop” them, but the pressure won’t change (My own voice won’t sound louder etc.) and I stay congested.
This has lead to horrific problems in the past when i’ve gotten so sick and tired of the pain, tried to block my nose and blow, and the result has been too much pressure, effectively sending me deaf in the ear i’ve just damaged. Then it’s half an hour before I can even attempt it again.
I can do it, usually.