Equalizing doesn’t fully open blocked ears

Thank you so much

@havasudan-you are welcome. Many people do not realize how closely the eustscian tube shares a tight space with the jaw. People who spend hours on laptop/iPhone, driving, bad posture start compensating in all kinds of areas in the head. The place where you feel the pressure/pain is not always the place where it originated from. That’s why a lot of adults end up at the ENT for ear issues. A good ENT usually educates patients on TMJ and referred sensation from there. Explore all options outside of the ENT office. And any ENT who is just pushing procedures without having real evidence to back up their reasoning, head the other direction.

I have followed all of these discussions with interest. I had a cat scan that showed none of my sinus mucosa is optimally functional. I was suffering from a lot of discomfort and just didn't know what was wrong. Everyone told me, including my GP, that I needed a sinus washout, correction of my deviated septum etc etc. I was lucky enough to see an ENT who told me unless I had a real obstruction he did not want to do any procedure since it could well make things worse.. Essentially he was telling me he couldn't help me but this fact was empowering. He told me many people would have a similar cat scan and some weren't bothered and some were. So I just focused on self management and now things are much better. There is a lot of advice in these pages and some worked for me and some didn't. I do find daily irrigation helpful. It seems like some ENTs now acknowledge chronic sinusitis and perhaps Eustachian tube dysfunction are actually medical problems. But they are first and foremost surgeons and there is no "official" medical specialty to turn to.

@bride-you are 100% correct. Your reply was so well put and it seems as though you have a thorough understanding of all of it completely. Fortunately you ended up with an honest ENT. And sharing your personal experience of how you were discouraged from surgery is very helpful. When people get referred to an ENT I don’t think they realize they are being referred to a “surgeon“. These ENTs expect that your GP has provided all of the medical management, options to help your situation, so by the time you end up in an ENTs office, they expect to be offering a surgery/procedure. They don’t get to “practice”operating unless a patient ends up in their office. These are elective surgeries so they have to “sell” you on the idea. Rarely someone who ends up at the ENT will “need” surgery. ENTs get very bored when someone presents with a symptom of ear issues as for a long time they were only able to offer procedure of tubes, which aren’t very affective, nor do they make that much of a profit. Balloon procedures have only just come to market recently and they are very profitable. So this will be a renewed interest in experimenting with eustscian tube dysfunction. Your sinus/nasal/ear bones are your skull structure that genetically developed to fit you. Many times when you begin to feel the subjective symptoms of discomfort, it is because there is an imbalance in the body that needs to be tended to. Stress, tension, diet, nutrients, immune system...these are all the ways the body talks to you to get your attention to make some changes and get more in tune with what is going on. When it is closer to the head, it is more distressful, leading to people to want a quick fix. The body is not a machine that can be picked and pulled apart for a quick fix. It is an entire amazing system that needs to work together to feel optimal. Again-@bride thank you for sharing real world feedback and not just “have you made an appt with your doctor?” Only you know your body the best. Not someone who meets you for 15 mins.