Why are my ears clicking!?

Factual Questions
1

When my head is placed in certain orientations, I can hear this continous “click click click click” sound in my left ear. Now, I have allergies and I’m heavily congested, so this might have something to do with it.

Its particularly bothersome at night. Everything’s all nice and quite except for this incesant “click click click click…” sound.

I figured I might just be hearing my heart beat but I can’t confirm this. It seems like its in sync with my heart beat but out of phase with it. Also, if I shake my head, the clicking speeds up, then slows down to its regular frequency.
Its exceedingly annoying; I can truly empathize with Van Gogh!
Any ideas??

2

You have fluid in your Eustachian tubes. Could Be from many things(allergies, cold, sinus infection…etc.)

3

An over the conter decongestant should help!

4

The weird thing though is that its continuous…as in…it doesn’t stop. You’d think eventually all the fluid in one place would drip to the other place and it would cease. On the other hand, I’ve never let it go long enough to see how long it would last…

And I’m not getting any discharges either.

5

Funny! When I woke up today I had this clicking in my ear! Mine only happens when I articulate my jaw though. I wonder if its something atmospheric. Guess I need to get some decongestant, too. I am not showing any other symptoms of allergy or illness, though.

6

I sometimes get exactly this problem too.

IANAD. As it was explained to me, it isn’t dripping that causes the clicking, but rather other physical processes that you are hearing extra-loud because your hearing is screwed up by the congestion. Congestion can put pressure on your sinuses etc and press things slightly out of place up in there.

Trigonal Planar, if the clicking is bugging you, you may want to try relaxing your shoulder and neck muscles as much as possible – maybe even get a massage. This helps me a lot, and it sure won’t hurt you. I’m guessing it serves to put some slack in the system so sound isn’t transmitted from your body to your ears so well. Like putting slack in the string between the two cups you played “telephone” with as a kid.

If you hear clicking every time you articulate your jaw, as KingLupid does, it may have something to do with your Eustachian tubes being physically responsive to your jaw joints, which isn’t uncommon.

I have what’s called “intermittently patulous Eustachian tubes,” which just means they sometimes get sort of stuck open. At those times, my own breath sounds like a wind tunnel to me, and I can’t hear well over that noise. The ear and hearing doc confirmed that this is really happening with what I think he called a tympaniometry test – it’s supposed to check how well your eardrums are vibrating in response to sound waves; one of mine was vibrating in response to my breathing, instead. I was literally breathing through my ear.

It’s also easy for me to “clear” my ears – to deliberately equalize the pressure inside my ears by “popping” them open for a second (if they aren’t already stuck open, that is). You need to be able to do this if you go diving, and it’s helpful on airplanes or mountain drives. According to the doc, this is just an accident of my anatomy. The fact that I’ve had allergies and sinus problems all my life makes it likely that all that snot affected my ears at some point, too.

7

I can make all sorts of weird noises by articulating my jaw, but this clicking is occurring independent of that.

As for the relaxing techniques you mentioned, it does work, but the problem is the act of relaxing results in very uncomfortable blockages and pressure.

8

I went to the Doc a few months ago over some similar ‘clicking’. She took a look and said it was naturally occurring catarrh behind the drum and nothing unusual. Haven’t noticed it at all in this summer heat, though.

Might be that. Probably best to get someone to look at it

9

It’s aliens communicating with you.

Absolutely no doubt!

10
11

I have chronic sinusitis, which causes a lot of pain several times a year. I have tried the antibiotics-for-four-months route, and got fed up when it just came banging back with the next cold, so for now I live with it.

However, a few months ago, just at the end of a particularly bad flare-up, while the pain was at its peak, my MIL gave me some money for a massage as I had pulled a shoulder and neck muscle picking my kid up.

It was scheduled at a hot spring baths, so I bathed first and got good and warm, then went for the massage. I told her about the pulled muscles in my neck and asked her to concentrate there. She positioned me with my head rather more down than usual (but still comfortable) and went to work. (This is a Japanese shiatsu type massage.)

About 30 minutes into the massage, during which she pulled my head and neck a lot, I started to hear clicks and crackles in my face and ears. Suddenly the sinus began to drain, and (TMI!!!) an absolute gush of what I can only describe as pus came pouring out. She went on massaging and pulling my head until the whole of that side of my head was clear. It was wonderful. The cessation of the pain after weeks of it was like a ringing, beautiful silence.

I won’t spoil the story by saying that the other side would not clear so I was left feeling a bit unbalanced for a few days! It did clear by itself a few days later though.

And the price of the massage was about the same as all the x-rays and antibiotics that I would have got at the hospital.

So… this is a very long-winded way of recommending that you try a head and neck massage - it may very well help. Good luck.

12

Hee hee! Hokkaido Brit, that’s great. My voice & speech teacher in acting college told a story that yours reminded me of… hey, heck, this might work for you too, Trigonal Planar, so maybe it’s not OT.

My voice teacher was a disciple of Arthur Lessac, one of the Grand Old Masters of voice training. One of his schtiks is the “Y-buzz” (you can read about this in his most-used book, The Use and Training of the Human Voice.) This is an exercize in which you make a really nasalized “eeeeee” noise at a low pitch so as to maximize the vibration in the roof of your mouth and other parts of your face. As you get better at it, you learn to maximize the vibration on other tones too, and at higher pitches. A room full of Y-buzzers at the top of their range are freakin’ LOUD. (This training is very useful for actors who do outdoor theater.)

So my teacher, when she was a student herself in the late 60s, had a fellow student in Lessac training that just could not get the Y-buzz. This poor lady tried and tried but could not get any resonance to speak of. The trainers did their best with her and ended up concluding that she should keep trying, but it might be a lost cause.

The student kept at it as much as she could, to the extent of trying to practice even when walking around New York City. One day, in Central Park, she realized that she might be sort of getting it – finally. She stopped and started to make some noise. She was getting some resonance all through her head. This is great! she thought, and really put some effort into it.

Then she started choking. She coughed up great slabs and strings and chunks of multicolored semi-dried goo that had apparently been clogging all her resonant sinuses and coating the back of her throat for god knows how long. She coughed up apparently cupfuls of this muck, thinking she was dying, hoping no one with in the Park was thinking of robbing or molesting her. When she finally caught her breath and horked up a last few malingerers from the back of her throat, she discovered that she now had a beautiful, clear Y-buzz… and from then on had no trouble in voice class at all.

I heard this, back in the day, and took it very much to heart, and started experimenting, since I had (and have) a ready supply of sinus goo. I can attest that you CAN clean your sinuses out with a good Y-buzz if you’re persistent. But I don’t recommend doing it in Central Park.

13

Maybe you have a cockroach stuck in there…not impossible as Cecil will tell you it happens Urrghh

14

Have you checked out the Taos Hum?

15

Eww yourself, Emilyforce! That was a reeevolting story!

But I bet the woman felt a whole lot better having shed that load…

I think I might go off somewhere quiet and try that buzzing now.