Water in my ear

Factual Questions
1

I went swimming last Sunday and got some water in my ear.

Now it’s gone.

Questions:
[ol]
[li]How did it get there?[/li][li]Where exactly was it?[/li][li]Is it dangerous?[/li][li]Where did it go?[/li][li]Could I have gotten it out on my own?[/li][li]How?[/li][/ol]

2
  1. ummm I think you know that one
  2. I’d like to read the answer to this one too.
  3. I’ve had water in my ear plenty of times and I haven’t had a problem. I heard bacteria might infect it (aka :“swimmers itch”)
  4. If it just dissapeared, its had time to evaporate. Or it might have leaked out in your sleep.
  5. Maybe
  6. I’ve actually had great luck just turning over to one side. Sometimes tugging my earlobe helps. It feels like its deforming the ear canal a bit, which seems to provide enough impetus to let it drain.
3

There is a commercial product called, I think, SwimEar that is useful in eliminating water trapped in ears. It’s primarily a mixture of alcohol and boric acid. The boric acid is supposed to have some medicinal effect (maybe to prevent the aforementioned “swimmer’s itch”) but the alcohol does the magic of removing the water. I presume it affects the surface tension of the trapped water. At any rate it works. Put a couple of drops in the affected ear, tilt your head, and the trapped water drains right out.

It’s not expensive (a dollar or two for a small bottle – enough for a lot of applications) but my wife’s parismonious uncle, who is a pharmacist, insists that it’s much cheaper to make it up yourself. Just buy some boric acid and alcohol, etc. I disagree. Get a bottle, keep it with your medications, never suffer from water in your ear again.

4

Pluto:

Thanks for the info!

Now I’m just waiting for some bio-geek to enlighten me with the answers to the rest of my questions.

5

think eustachian tubes,

6

I get this all the time when i go swimming. All I do is tilt my head to one side and shake it up and down until the water comes out. Repeat for other side.

7
  1. You put your head underwater and your ear canals filled up.
  2. In your ear canal. Probably down as far as your eardrum.
  3. Not usually. Many people drink it on a regular basis.
  4. If you don’t have an earwig problem, it drained out or evaporated.
  5. Unless someone got it out for you, you probably did.
  6. By turning your head and letting it drain out.
    Or by putting a few drops of 99% Isopropyl alcohol in your ear with an eyedropper, waiting a minute, and than letting it drain out.
8

…so I’ll re-iterate (and I speak from years of swim team/lifeguard/scuba diving/anything else to do in the water experience).

Tilt your head to the side so the affected ear is pointing to the ground (like you’re trying to touch your ear to your shoulder) and jump up and down a few times. Works about 90% of the time and it’s free (although you look stupid doing it).

Swimmer’s Ear stuff you can buy will work too but it’s not always handy.

Also, water in the ear is usually not dangerous, just annoying. I suppose if the problem persists for, say, 2 days something else might be up and it’s time for a visit to the doctor.

9

The eustachian tubes lead to the middle ear. A healthy intact ear drum should totally seal the middle and inner ear from the ear canal.

10

Bah. I was a certified scuba diver before you were born. The correct way to do this is have someone grab you smartly by the throat. When the blood pressure builds up in your head, it pushes the water out of your ear.

“What’s a decomp table? The safe surface interval for any dive is four beers.”