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Can't hear out of my right ear
- Thread starter likemyorbs
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My ER copay was $100 a year or two ago. Heh, paying $714 a month for health insurance too. A lot of variance.
[Emphasis Added] Does it work with the other ear?
Oh well, here we go to PRSI...
Either way. Urgent care is viable too. It just didn't occur to me at the time I posted.
Luckily it stopped for now. I guess I'll just forget about it this time, but if it happens again then definitely going to the doctor.
Have you recently or in the past blown your ear drums out with loud music or power tools?
I get ringing all the time and then it stops. That is usually a sign of minor hearing loss. When the ringing stops it is hairs in your ear drum dying off.
You don't value your hearing at 25? You have insurance -- use it, it can only get more expensive, and at the cost of sacrificing a movie and cheap dinner is worth it even if it turns out to be nothing.
Or bring it up at your next regular visit, which apparently is going to be within a month or two anyway.
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You have no copay for non-routine medical visits? Are you paying taxes to indulge hypochondriacs? Suit yourself, but I would be pretty unhappy about that.
Well, glad it stopped for you. Still I would mention it for sure to your doc at the next visit. I have had that myself but that is due to ear wax which tends to build up especially when I get a cold or allergies (hayfever in the spring) and have to put drops and get the wax washed out by a water syringe at the doctor's office.
I had this happen once. The same thing happened, it just went away very quickly. The weird thing is that it happened RIGHT before I had to go to a party where the music was SO LOUD that the tables were shaking.
A doctor will prescribe you ear drops and maybe allergy medication. That's what mine did a few months ago when I came in with ear pain among other things. I think it's a good idea to get that (since it's over the counter anyway), and try it for a week before seeing a doctor, because yeah, it does save you the cost of going to see one. A little bottle is like $5 I think.
A doctor will prescribe you ear drops and maybe allergy medication. That's what mine did a few months ago when I came in with ear pain among other things. I think it's a good idea to get that (since it's over the counter anyway), and try it for a week before seeing a doctor, because yeah, it does save you the cost of going to see one. A little bottle is like $5 I think.
That is good advice. Just as a general rule of thumb, I figure having things like this documented is good practice since a pattern of seemingly unconnected symptoms might in fact mean something to a doctor.
Nope. The advantage of a 'universal healthy insurance' system is that extra costs of the very small number of people who abuse the system ('hypochondriacs' in your words) is balanced by the vastly larger savings of people dealing with their medical issues before their health deteriorates to the point that a small easily fixed problem has mushroomed into one that requires expensive hospitalization. The result is a society that lives longer, is healthier longer, and spends less per person on healthcare to get those results.
With respect, the OP's symptoms don't match yours... they didn't mention pain for instance.... so recommending the same course of action may not be the best.
This is my area of expertise.
I have one great affliction, and it's a hard one to live with. For reasons unknown, my head produces incredibly viscous, amazingly thick earwax. Fortunately (or unfortunately), it never pours out of my ears, so it's never noticeable by anyone but me. But it gets impacted in there, and gets thicker, and thicker, and thicker all the while. If I let it go on long enough, it will eventually deafen me. According to my doctor, it's blocked me up to the point that I've lost a good 90% of hearing in one ear before.
If this is the case, and he's like me, those home remedy kits won't do a damn thing to help him out. His only option will be to go to the doctor, who will use this thing that looks like a novelty syringe with a blunt tip to spray hard jets of water into your head for a good half an hour to break it all up. It's not painful at all, but it is a really, really strange sensation. I tend to have to go through the whole ordeal about once a year.
Though on the plus side, when you get it done, it's like having one of your senses gifted back to you. The time I mentioned previously, when I experienced 90% hearing loss in one ear, that was when I let it go on the longest. It wasn't just that one ear, either. The other had a good bit of blockage as well, though not nearly as severe. I didn't have time to go to the doctor, and suffered through this for three weeks. It was so bad, it changed the way I talked. I tended to speak slower, and mumble a lot more, since my own voice sounded like it was booming in my head. If I had a phone up to my good ear, I literally couldn't hear what someone was saying even if they were speaking right next to me. People sounded like Peanut's teachers played through a TV with the sound turned down so low, it could only just barely be heard.
But when I finally had it done...my god. It was like I was suddenly hearing EVERYTHING. Little sounds I used to take for granted were suddenly washing over me with amazing clarity and detail. For instance, my doctor's office has an indoor fountain in the lobby. I couldn't hear it on the way in. On the way out, the sound of water hitting water was booming all around me. Outside, I could hear the wind blowing and the birds singing. Everything was so crisp and clear, I was practically in a state of rapt amazement for hours afterwards. The experience was almost worth the three weeks of near deafness I went through to get there.
So yeah, get your ears checked, man. You don't want to take chances with your hearing.
This happened to me before too. I used to use the cotton swabs often to clean my ears and apparently I pushed some wax to far into my ear. At my clinic the nurse just used this big syringe to push water into my ear and clean all the wax out, was actually an interesting experience
So it could be just a wax build-up, I've heard that some spas or esthetic places do the same kind of ear cleaning too.
So it could be just a wax build-up, I've heard that some spas or esthetic places do the same kind of ear cleaning too.