Ear making crackling noise

maxshuty

Well-Known Member
Every so often my left ear gets a crackling noise that goes through it and just sounds sort of like static on a TV channel that doesn't come in, or something like that. I can't hear anything out of that ear until I "pop" it. Sometimes this happens throughout the whole day, other times once a day, pretty randomly...
I HAVE noticed when a sound is only heard mostly in my right ear it makes the left ear do this. Right now at my computer desk I have a fan running on the right side of me about 5 feet away and my left ear is contantly needing to be "popped," if I dont pop the ear it makes me feel really light headed.

What is this?! How can I get it fixed, what will be required?

I'm a little scared to go to the doctor and get this checked out because I can hear PERFECTLY fine, I even got my 3rd class medical with this problem and I dont want to get denied a medical for having this or something, which is why I'm asking you...
 
Obviously I defer to the doc, but I had a little panic about something similar a few years ago. Turned out I just had a bunch of wax in my ear. Did your AME not check your ears?
 
Every so often my left ear gets a crackling noise that goes through it and just sounds sort of like static on a TV channel that doesn't come in, or something like that. I can't hear anything out of that ear until I "pop" it. Sometimes this happens throughout the whole day, other times once a day, pretty randomly...
I HAVE noticed when a sound is only heard mostly in my right ear it makes the left ear do this. Right now at my computer desk I have a fan running on the right side of me about 5 feet away and my left ear is contantly needing to be "popped," if I dont pop the ear it makes me feel really light headed.

What is this?! How can I get it fixed, what will be required?

I'm a little scared to go to the doctor and get this checked out because I can hear PERFECTLY fine, I even got my 3rd class medical with this problem and I dont want to get denied a medical for having this or something, which is why I'm asking you...

do you hear the noise when you swollow?
 
Think Boris might have it. I had the same problem a while back. Went and had a thorough cleaning and oh my GOD you should have seen the amount of wax they got out. Same popping sounds were happening with me.

For the next two days, it felt like everyone was shouting at me. I'm pretty sure I regained about 10-15% of my hearing, maybe more.
 
The thing is I haven't failed or had ANY problems with my hearing what so ever... :dunno: And I get picky when it comes to stuff like that... I tend to clean my ears at the very least every three days so I dont know how a bunch of wax could be in there (I suppose there's always a way...) I dont hear any noise when I swallow and this issue has been going on for at 8 months to a year (it's bothered me but I just always put it off and would forget about it and I'm finally coming around to it) so that means it's not from a cold or anything... The AME did check everything, vision, hearing, etc. etc.
Im just scared because I dont want to go in there and have them tell me its some serious issue and then get denied a medical.

And right now it's a few hours later from my original post and I'm sitting, again with the fan on, but this time it's not bothering me...
 
Well cleaning your ears every three days can inflame them. Do to a normal doc, get them rinsed out, then don't clean them until they itch or feel full. Normally you should clean the ear lobe every day, and maybe the inside of the ear once a week. That wax actually serves a purpose you know.

I've gotten the static sensation when I'm sick and it fills with wax but the wax gets little air holes in it. After cleaning it goes away. I've hada sensation like it's filled with water when I got it cleaned with a water and hydrogen peroxide solution and the inner ear got inflamed, and I couldn't hear for about 4 hours out of that ear.
 
One of 2 things: 1) wax (cerumen) in the ear that needs to be washed out or 2) the eustachian tube intermittently gets blocked. (most often due to allergies). The later can be treated with Claritin and/or Sudafed.
 
Wow sorry about that post, apparently my GF was mad at me and got a hold of the computer...
Good sign it's time to drop her. I've had the wildly raging ex-girlfriend. Ended with cops and a lot of embarrassing phone calls to the parents.
 
Every so often my left ear gets a crackling noise that goes through it and just sounds sort of like static on a TV channel that doesn't come in, or something like that. I can't hear anything out of that ear until I "pop" it. Sometimes this happens throughout the whole day, other times once a day, pretty randomly...
I HAVE noticed when a sound is only heard mostly in my right ear it makes the left ear do this. Right now at my computer desk I have a fan running on the right side of me about 5 feet away and my left ear is contantly needing to be "popped," if I dont pop the ear it makes me feel really light headed.

What is this?! How can I get it fixed, what will be required?

I'm a little scared to go to the doctor and get this checked out because I can hear PERFECTLY fine, I even got my 3rd class medical with this problem and I dont want to get denied a medical for having this or something, which is why I'm asking you...

I had the EXACT same problem when I turned 21 (yes, I remember the exact time of year... I ignored it to drink) and it turns out that my ear drum was so enflamed with blood they almost had to drain it. STOP IGNORING IT. It's just about 10 days on a penacillin type med and it's over.

I had it so bad that I would try to get my boyfriend to hear it. Lol. When the crackling would start, I'd make him put his ear next to mine so I could have someone validate my craziness. :insane: He could never hear it though...
 
I have a similar problem with one of my ears. It is usually triggered by noises in a certain frequency range, though. It seems to be worse when I am sick or congested. I went to an ear, nose, and throat specialist and he classified it as "eustachian tube malfunction", whatever that means. He couldn't find anything terribly wrong, put me through a number of hearing tests (they joked that they could calibrate the machine by my hearing), and pulled several globs of wax out of my ear that were nothing short of spectacular.

If your insurance will cover a routine hearing exam, it wouldn't hurt to get it checked out by a specialist.
 
Mine also gets triggered by certain frequencies of sound, but only sometimes.

I'll try and make an appointment with someone soon and get this thing fixed.
 
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