Ear Practice Room

Look Astrid, as a psychologist I make diagnoses, treat psychological problems that are related to her complaints. In Lillian's case, her sexual complaints. As a medical specialist, you indicate the complex psychological blockages, indicate her physical problems, the sexual blockages. People who have their ears syringed Astrid, run the risk of developing an ear infection because the ear syringes are not disinfected properly. On my daily practice, I have noticed that people who had their ears syringed often returned a few weeks later with an ear infection..

Môggel Floris Jan,

A few months ago I had a patient with complaints of a blocked ear. I looked at him and saw that he looked unkempt. He told me that he had pain in his left ear despite the fact that he had been trying cheap ear drops from Kruidvat for four days.

The patient was numb on one side. After telling his story I took my stethoscope and first listened to his lungs. The patient was quite concerned about shortness of breath. After further throat and tongue analysis, I asked if the patient had any more complaints. He told me that he could not hear in his left ear.

My first thought was to have an ENT specialist look at it. Perhaps the patient has a middle ear infection: an infection in the space behind the eardrum. This is common in children. But also in adults. The Eustachian tube is sometimes narrowed and therefore easily blocked. If that tube is blocked, a vacuum is created in the middle ear. This sucks on the mucous membranes, as it were, causing the space to fill with mucus. This causes hearing loss. If a bacterium gets into the mucus, a nasty inflammation occurs, causing the eardrum to burst, the dirt to leak out and the whole thing to heal again.

If the complaints are long-term, it could probably be a middle ear infection, and further medical examination and treatment are necessary. The patient often suffers from a strange pain around the ear. A possible cause is a cholesteatoma. This is a type of cyst of skin cells in the middle ear, which grows slowly and which needs to be surgically removed.

After checking the middle ear, I saw that the ear canal was clean and advised the patient to use a nasal spray for six weeks and to rinse his nose with salt water. Noise, beeping, whistling, buzzing, pounding, humming: they all occur with tinnitus. Although the patient indicated that he did not recognize these complaints, I decided not to refer him to the ENT department @Radboudumc Reassured the patient that the sound that had disappeared should show a pulsating dissolving effect when the prescribed saline solution was used correctly.

The sense of smell usually remains the same over time, although the nature and tone of the closed ear can change. Relieved, the patient took my hand and I led him out of my practice room. Upon returning, I briefly read the patient's general care history. Some people only hear it in silence, while for others it is always there. The volume usually remains the same over time, although the nature and tone of the sound can change.