Today I revisited an activity I hadn’t participated in since I was, oh, maybe twelve years old or so.  I got tubes inserted into my eardrums again. I had it done a couple of times as a kid, I guess there’s something about my system that causes my ears to not be able to regulate pressure naturally. I like to think that it’s my massive brain squeezing out other required functionality.

In any case, I’m not sure how much better I’m hearing just yet. It does seem better, so far. At least I don’t feel pressure adjustments every time I swallow. I knew it wouldn’t be like magic, because some of my hearing loss is from doing stupid shit – spending too much time around loud noise without protection. But some of it was clearly the result of a pressure differential between inside and outside the eardrum. And now that’s been resolved.

Unlike when I was twelve, this time it was outpatient. I won’t describe the ghastly, barbaric things that I endured today… or maybe I will. Several injections of local anesthetic into each ear canal. Incision into eardrum. Vacuuming up any leftover debris behind eardrum – a process that sounds like jet engines in your ears, and feels like, well, a vacuum, causing highly uncomfortable pressure changes in the ear canal. All of that is better than waking up in a recovery room needing to puke.

Here are some diagrams describing PE Tube Insertion.