What are the symptoms of a perforated eardrum?

If the eardrum is perforated, it will directly affect the patient's hearing ability, which will have a great impact on the patient's life. When the eardrum is perforated, the patient will not only experience hearing loss, but also a feeling of blockage in the ear canal, and may also experience dizziness and nausea. These are all things that patients need to know how to distinguish to avoid delays in treatment.

Causes

1. The most common cause is infection through the Eustachian tube, which is more common in infants and young children. Because the Eustachian tube of infants is short, relatively thick and straight, nasal secretions, milk, etc. can easily flow into or choke into the middle ear through the Eustachian tube and cause acute otitis media. After the middle ear becomes purulent, the pus corrodes the eardrum and causes perforation of the eardrum.

2. Direct causes: Since the eardrum is thin, accidentally damaging the eardrum when digging out earwax and foreign objects can lead to perforation of the eardrum. It is also common in head trauma, combined with temporal bone fracture that damages the eardrum. Strong water columns or air flows spraying the eardrum, accidentally dripping chemical corrosives into the ear, metal shavings and slag splashing into the ear canal, and Eustachian tube expansion can also damage the eardrum.

1. Physical signs

When the eardrum is perforated, there may be no symptoms due to the patient's nervousness. After a period of time, you will suddenly feel a roar in your ears, accompanied by symptoms such as ear pain, tinnitus and deafness, and a small amount of blood will flow out of the external auditory canal. If the patient has inner ear damage, he or she will experience symptoms such as dizziness, nausea and severe deafness. On examination, blood was seen in the external auditory canal and an irregular perforation of the tympanic membrane.

2. Symptoms

Tympanic membrane perforation is a common clinical manifestation of chronic suppurative otitis media, which can cause long-term hearing impairment in patients and occasional purulent secretions out of the ear. If the eardrum is perforated due to severe brain injury, blood may flow from the ear.

1. Hearing loss. It often manifests itself in the need to tilt one's ear to listen to other people's conversations; watching TV or listening to MP3s with the volume turned up very loudly without feeling anything; listening to others talking, often requires them to repeat themselves twice before one can hear clearly, etc. This is all caused by the reduction in the effective vibration area of ​​the sound source.

2. A feeling of blockage occurs. After the eardrum is perforated, the air pressure inside and outside the patient's ear will change. The air pressure caused by the external auditory canal will impact the damaged part of the eardrum, making the patient feel stuffy in the ear and a slightly dull pain in the brain. If the problem is serious, the patient will also have symptoms of ear pain and tinnitus.

3. Dizziness and nausea. Pus or a small amount of blood may flow out of the ear canal from time to time. In the early stage of eardrum perforation, bleeding is not obvious. Only through an ear endoscope can a small amount of blood be found on the edge of the perforation. Blood or blood scab can sometimes be seen in the external auditory canal. However, when the eardrum is perforated and sewage or bacteria enter, it will cause infection in the middle ear, and some poisoning-like symptoms will occur. At this time, the harm to human health is also difficult to estimate, such as cerebrospinal fluid otorrhea, otitis media, meningitis, etc.