Crackling & Squishing in Middle Ear ...

Continuing the discussion from Migraine Symptom Tracker App:

Funny you should say that, and I donā€™t wish to influence your own opinion in any way, but just to state that I wouldnā€™t be too hard on the doctors here.

I have now got to a point where I get zero (touch wood! :deciduous_tree: ) neurological symptoms, let alone migraine symptoms.

However, I still have ā€œsticky tubeā€ syndrome (invented that myself :sweat_smile: ) whereby I seem to have something building up in my anatomy near my ear and it is only ā€œfreedā€ when I move my jaw and jaw muscles to an extreme. Then I get a cracking and a feeling of ā€œfreeing upā€. Then sometimes (but not every time) I get a squishy sensation when I move my jaw for an hour or two.

I notice also that when my tinnitus is at its worst, this set of manoeuvres is most likely to cause a cracking.

It seems to be worst after a nights sleep when it is potentially at its most ā€œstuckā€.

Now itā€™s hard to say exactly what this is, but I bet this is mucus build up in the Eustachian tube.

I have other evidence this might be the case:

When I do a lot of exercise, I can get a blockage in my left ear which can clear soon after - itā€™s almost like there is fluid or ā€œsweatā€ that canā€™t escape down the ET. It is a temporary feeling of ā€œfullnessā€ and clears soon after.

I would theorise this could cause the pressure in the Eustachian tube to be incorrectly managed and that could apply air pressure onto the windows of the inner ear and cause hear high frequency hearing loss (as a result of damping) and also irritate the vestibular senses (due to lack of correlation in the pressure to movement).

I could imagine acute changes due to drying or ā€œstickingā€ might also cause the volume to shrink and cause vertigo?

Just some ideas.

Of course I have no idea why this is happening, but my physiology has never felt right there since the two months leading up to and at the beginning of MAV.

I will probably visit an ENT some day and raise this with them, but I fear they will just say ā€œthereā€™s nothing we can doā€ or ā€œgo visit your dentistā€ and offer nothing pro-active as a solution ā€¦

Maybe moving country to a more humid place would help?!

Would love to hear if anyone has a similar set of symptoms!