Suffering a ruptured eardrum is an unfortunate and unnecessary complication of scuba diving. If you understand a couple facts about your eardrum and about scuba diving, it's of course quite easy to avoid.
What is the Eardrum?
Microscope
The eardrum (also known as the tympanic membrane) is the thin membrane that separates the outer and middle ear. This leading buildings serves two purposes: It prevents ear infections by serving as a barricade to block bacteria from entering the middle ear, and it also allows you to hear. When sound waves charge the ear drum, it vibrates and creates nerve impulses that trip to the brain, resulting in a hearing sensation.
As you can probably guess, the two main consequences of a ruptured eardrum are potential infection and temporary hearing loss.
How Does an Eardrum Rupture?
Although a ruptured eardrum can be caused by some things, along with acoustic trauma, fluid buildup from ear infections, and direct damage from foreign objects, the main concern divers need to be aware of is barotrauma (pressure-induced injury).
The middle ear is an airspace, and all air spaces are affected by changes in pressure. Whenever the pressure covering an airspace is greater than the pressure inside, the outer pressure causes the airspace to compress, unless the imbalance is equalized.
Divers call this compression a squeeze. Another common situation in which you may have felt a squeeze in your ears is being on an airplane. If your ears have ever "popped," it's most likely because of a pressure imbalance.
A squeeze can range from uncomfortable to downright painful. You most likely encounter small changes in pressure everyday; however, you don't need to consciously equalize your ears because of a built-in equalization buildings known as the Eustachian tube. This tube connects your middle ear to your throat. When air passes in the middle of the middle ear and your throat straight through this tube, the pressure in both air spaces is equalized. Yawning, chewing, swallowing, and wiggling your jaw can also help with this.
But if this built-in equalization mechanism is so handy, why do divers sometimes run into problems with their ears?
The qoute is that the Eustachian tube is an airspace too, so it is field to changes in pressure just like the ears. As the ambient pressure of the water increases, the tube is compressed or even sealed. Without an open air passage, the middle ear compresses, and the ear drum is sucked inward due to the vacuum effect. If ears aren't equalized and the vacuum supervene continues to increase, the ear drum could rupture.
What Can You Do About It?
To avoid perforating your eardrum, you need to equalize your ears often during a dive (about every 5 to 10 vertical feet). You can't yawn, chew, swallow, or wiggle your jaw while you have a regulator in your mouth, but equalizing is still very easy!
Simply pinch your nostrils shut with two fingers while you gradually blow straight through your nose. No air should fly from your nostrils, and you should feel a little pressure or outward bulging in your ears. Make sure not to do this forcefully, though, or you'll risk blowing your eardrum anyway...exactly what you're trying to avoid!
What To Watch Out For
When you're diving, if you observation any pain, ear ringing or buzzing, or hearing loss, you should end the dive and see a doctor.
A ruptured eardrum takes about 2 to 3 months to heal. After that, you should check with an ear, nose, and throat specialist to see if it is safe to dive again. While your normal physician would probably use an octoscope to peruse your eardrum, the Ent specialist uses a binocular microscope that is capable of detecting much smaller perforations. This is leading because higher pressure levels can cause water to jet straight through even a tiny perforation, so you need to be sure the eardrum is completely healed before you dive again.
If you supervene the tips outlined above, you'll probably never have to worry about being sidelined by a ruptured eardrum. Take it slow and supervene responsible diving protocols, and you'll enjoy plentifulness of fun, safe, injury-free diving!
Avoiding a Ruptured Eardrum - Tips For a Safe Injury-Free DiveRelated : Sun Solar cell Top 10 Tablet PCs
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