ear Archives | Intellexi Med

Ear Issues [Show Notes]

May 8, 2017 in Podcasts tagged ear / episode / flavanoids / hearing loss / infection / motion sickness / otitis media / tinnitus / vertigo by Cynthia Hendrix

PSA: Please don’t stick things in your ear any larger than your elbow…and that includes your finger.

Review

Outer ear = the part that you can touch
Middle ear = the area being the ear drum
Inner ear = the cochlea and area responsible for your balance

3 common ear problems

Ear infections (otitis media)
Vertigo (and motion sickness)
Tinnitus (ringing in your ear)

Callback

*Ear wax

Ear Infections

The area behind your ear drum has air in it and that pressure is equalized through the eustachian tube. If that area gets fluid in it, that fluid can grow bacteria and that leads to infection. The natural motion of opening and closing your jaw helps massage the eustachian tubes and moves air in and out (like when you fly or drive in the mountains and you chew gum or yawn).

Cold and allergies can be the source of the fluid build up that leads to ear infection. You may have decreased hearing, pain, decreased balance – infection can require antibiotics.

Vertigo

This is the sensation of spinning, dizziness, being off balance
The semi-circular canals are responsible for your balance. If it get sloshed too much, or doesn’t level out exactly right, then the signals sent to the brain may translate to being off balance even though your body is upright. The signal confusion is what can lead to nausea (it’s not actually happening in your stomach – at least not until you vomit!)
The fluid moving around in these canals are why kids can induce dizziness when they spin around in circles (think about the clothes in your washer during the spin cycle – they get pushed to the outside).
Medications for vertigo are the same as some medications for nausea – plus they have drowsy side effects, so maybe you just sleep it off.
There are many suspected causes, but nothing definite or proven.

Tinnitus

Defined as ringing, buzzing, roaring, whooshing sound when nothing is actually making that noise.
Causes: hearing loss (either due to aging or exposure to loud noises); high blood pressure (pulsating); medications
One theory: the hairs in the cochlea are damaged so those frequencies of sound (usually high pitched sounds) can’t be picked up anymore; the brain fills in the gaps with “made up sound”. This is NOT PROVEN!
High blood pressure can cause you to hear the blood pulsing through the blood vessels in your ears.

Medications that causing ringing in the ears

Aspirin (acute over-use)
Aminoglycosides (i.e. Gentamicin = antibiotic) – it has a small therapeutic window, too much can lead to ear damage, it stopped in time, permanent ear damage can be avoided
Quinine = usually asked for to help leg cramps, also medically prescribed to prevent malaria. Can only be readily consumed by drinking tonic water.

Flavonoids are put in vitamins and advertised to help tinnitus. Flavonoids are phytonutrients (nutrients you get from plants). These nutrients can’t grow the hairs back in the cochlea. Most of the vitamins and nutrients in the flavonoid vitamins have anti-oxidative properties, but I doubt that tinnitus is a major oxidation problem.

Audience Question

Can being slapped over time cause ringing in the ears?

Being bopped in the face and head can probably cause permanent damage to the structures on the inside and outside of your head. Being hit in the side of the head can cause pressure build-up in the ear where the air causes the ear drum to rupture (like “boxing” the ears).
Slaps to the face (like “you jerk!” kind of slaps) don’t usually cause ear problems, but punches or slaps to the side of the head near or on the ears can possibly cause damage.

Prevent ear problems: be nice to your ears!

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Music Credits: “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Ear Anatomy [Show Notes]

May 1, 2017 in Podcasts tagged brain / cochlea / ear / ear drum / episode / frequency / pitch / sound / vertigo by Cynthia Hendrix

Ear Basics

The auricle is the part of the ears you can see. It is made of cartilage (flexible tissue that doesn’t have a large blood supply). Everything else requires a tool for the doctor to see inside. And the doctor can only see to the ear drum. The stuff behind the ear drum isn’t visible because of the membrane that blocks it. The middle and inner ear are surrounded by your head bones.

Science of Sound

Sound is created when the air around us is compressed and then expands. They move away from the source in circles (think radar or sonar or throwing a pebble in a pond).

The ear canal directs the sound waves towards the ear drum.

Sound gets translated in 2 main ways

Identify the sound
Identify if the sound has meaning

Inside Your Ears

The ear drum (tympanic membrane) vibrates according to the intensity of the sound and trigger the Hammer-Anvil-Stirrup cascade.

The ear drum vibrates the handle of the Hammer (Malus bone – yes, it’s a real bone).
The Hammer bangs on the Anvil (Incus bone).
The Anvil has a tail that is connected to the Stirrup (Stapes bone).
The Stirrup looks like the spurs on the back of boots. It is connected to a membrane on the Cochlea and works like a plunger.

All of these bones are surrounded by air and the pressure is controlled by the Eustachian tube. This is the access point for ear infections or congestion due to allergies or a cold.

The Cochlea is a bone full of fluid and lined with hairs and shaped like a spiraled sea shell. The hairs pick up different frequencies of sound (sound wave frequency determines pitch). If certain levels of hairs get damaged, then you will not be able to hear pitches in that range anymore. If you unrolled the cochlea, it would be laid out low pitch to high pitch like a piano. And these hairs are connected to the auditory nerves and turn sound signals into electrical signal to send it to your brain.

Semicircular canals of the cochlea are little bone chambers full of fluid and they control balance. This works like a leveling bubble to help you stay upright. If it becomes dysfunctional, then it may trigger vertigo.

The middle ear (the area behind the ear drum) is where most of the trouble happens – whether allergies causing stopped up ears, or colds leading to ear infections.