Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Self sabotage

You could check out the great medical advice provided by Dr. Seuss in One Fish Two Fish...:

Oh dear! Oh dear!
I can not hear.
Will you please
Come over here?
Will you please look in my ear?
There must be something there, I fear.

Say look!
A bird was in your ear.
But it is out. So have no fear.
Again your ear can hear, my dear.

Another option is an audiologist. I wear hearing aids. My doctor only charged me $30 to clean out my ears. Of course, she wanted to sell me hearing aids. While you are there you can get a hearing test...

Sam

I had an ear infection a few months ago. I went to an ear nose and throat guy and he suctioned junk out of my ear. It was incredibly painful! He couldn’t see any perforation and it cleared up in a week or so. The ear guy had me do a hearing test, which came it good, even with the swelling in one ear.

I have found that running tends to naturally cause dried ear wax to fall out of my ear. My doctor has told me not to put anything smaller than my elbow into the ear canal.

The hydrogen peroxide drops did not work. Doctor has advised syringing, but only after a week of putting olive oil in my ear to loosen it up. So next week will be fun and games.

I think my brain must have adjusted for the muffled sound I just don’t hear the difference any more. But if I cover the non blocked I can tell from loudness the other ear is not hearing a lot.

That’s too bad. I’ve had my ears irrigated a few times over the years. It’s a religious experience!

When I first went to look at my new piano, it sounded awful. My ears were clogged up though and I knew it. I had them irrigated and went back and looked again. That’s when I purchased it.

Good luck. If it's just wax you are in for an amazing experience. Of course, it does feel like the water will go all the way through and out the other ear before the worst of it dislodges. It's not painful but it always surprises me how much pressure the doctor will use.

This is the earwax thread, I see! 😂

Not to make you Caucasians feel inadequate, but us East Asians are genetically different in carrying the recessive gene ABCC11 for dry earwax. In my case, it is so dry as to not accumulate at all. My GPs have constantly remarked when taking an otoscopic peek that I just have no earwax. This is probably just lucking out - I know other East Asians who have earwax. But the resourceful Japanese came up with a service for dealing with even small accumulations of earwax. You go to a special ear-cleaning parlor like Yamamoto Mimikaki-ten, lay your head on the lap of a young woman who uses special tools to remove every bit of the nasty earwax so each ear canal is fresh as a daisy. I've sometimes bemoaned not having much earwax as I would really like to try one of those Japanese ear-cleaning parlors. After all, can't everyone benefit from a little session evoking "the maternal tenderness of their childhood"?

All is not sweetness and light for those of us earwax-challenged though. My childhood pediatrician would blame my frequently recurring ear infections on the scarcity of earwax. Sigh.

So ends your cultural-enlightenment minute. Back to self-sabotaging!

Well the self sabotage, was that for the first time when I had little in the way of constraints to practise my hearing was noticeably muffled from a blocked ear. I felt that this was my usual body sabotaging me from the practise I was planning. My brain seems to have adjusted for the muffled sound but the hearing volume in the affected ear is still there.

Wait, I thought you were all supposed to be smart as all get out. It isn't fair to have that AND no ear wax!

My teacher told me that she had an ear infection and ruptured eardrum, years ago, and threw vodka down the chute. After that didn’t work, she saw a doctor. He was not impressed by her method of dealing with the problem.

She told me this story a few months ago when I had an ear infection. I went to an ear nose and throat doctor and he suctioned the infected ear. I could have screamed it hurt so much. He didn’t find a perforation but it could have been a micro perforation that had already healed.

I’ve decided to heed my doctor’s advice and never put anything smaller than my elbow in my ear. Luckily, I didn’t lose any hearing after my bout with the ear infection. I think you should see a specialist. It’s easy to irritate the sensitive tissues in the ear with peroxide, and Q Tips just cause the wax to get impacted. I rely on running to jostle the wax out of my ear.

I have weight problems. 🙄 There, you see? Balance has been restored to the universe! 😂