If you’ve developed a clogged feeling in one or both of your ears that’s muffling and distorting sounds or making it difficult to hear your surroundings, you may be wondering why it’s happening and if it’s a sign of something more serious – especially if it seems out of the blue.

Muffled hearing normally occurs because sound waves, which are the natural process by which we detect sound, are having trouble passing through your inner ear. There are many possible reasons why this may be happening, so today we’ll delve a little deeper into why this may be happening to you so you can treat it effectively and help prevent it from happening again in the future. 

Symptoms Of Clogged And Muffled Ears

Muffled hearing can sound and feel like cotton balls in your ear, and you may have a sensation that’s similar to the pressure you feel while flying on an aeroplane, right before you unblock your ears. You may notice it in one or both ears, and it may happen suddenly or develop gradually over time. If you have clogged or muffled ears, you might find it difficult to detect where a sound is coming from, be unable to hear others clearly, especially in crowded or noisy environments, or have trouble tuning out background noises.

Understanding Clogged And Muffled Ears: How Do We Hear Sounds?

To make sense of what can cause our ears to feel blocked and muffled, we must first understand a little about the complex process involved for our body to hear sounds:

1. First, sound waves enter our outer ear and travel through a narrow passageway called the ear canal, which leads to our eardrum.
2. When these sound waves hit the eardrum, they set it in motion. The eardrum is a paper-thin membrane that vibrates when sound waves hit it, in a similar way to a drum.
3. The eardrum sends these vibrations to three tiny bones in the middle ear, which move as well.
4. The movements from these bones transmit the sound waves into the inner ear and into the cochlea, a snail shell-shaped organ, which is filled with a fluid that also moves in response to the vibrations.
5. These fluid movements and vibrations are then transformed into electrical impulses by cells known as hair cells, which then travel along the auditory nerve to our brain.
6. Finally, our brain processes and decodes these signals and turns them into meaningful sounds, like speech, music, or a dog barking.

What Can Cause A Clogged And Muffled Ear?

There are many possible causes of a blocked ear, and the most common ones include:

1.  Excessive Earwax

A common culprit for muffled hearing is excessive ear wax, known as cerumen. Normally, earwax is the body’s way of protecting the ear, working to trap dirt and other pollutants, lubricate the ear, and clean the ear canal, eventually naturally falling out on its own. However, sometimes ear wax can build up in the ear canal and cause a blockage, and dry up and harden over time, creating an impaction. Impacted earwax can prevent sound waves from travelling to your inner ear, and muffle your hearing.

To prevent it from happening, avoid using items like cotton buds or bobby pins to try to clean your ears or remove excess earwax. Not only could you accidentally puncture your eardrum or push the earwax deeper into the canal, but removing this natural protective lubricant can lead to the development of dry, itchy ears.

When Should I Seek Care?

If you’re concerned or feel like your ears are blocked with a lot of earwax, visit your hearing care professional. They can assess your hearing and determine whether or not your ears need ear wax removed safely with specialised tools and equipment.

2.  Foreign Objects

Sometimes, foreign objects can enter and get stuck in the ear, blocking the ear canal and contributing to hearing loss of muffled sounds. Children may insert a small toy or piece of food into their ear, but it can happen to adults too – sometimes a small insect can fly into the ear while at the beach, exercising, or when working, and sometimes a piece of cotton from a cotton bud may fall off and get stuck in your ear.

When Should I Seek Care?

If you think your child may have inserted something into their ear, or you think there may be a foreign object in your own ear, don’t try to remove the object yourself. Make an appointment with a hearing care professional who can look inside your ear and remove objects safely with custom tools to prevent further damage.

3.  Middle Ear Infection

People who develop a middle ear infection may feel a clogged sensation in their ear, as the infection can cause fluid to build up behind the eardrum, preventing sounds from travelling to the inner ear. This infection can be very painful and can progress into further problems if not dealt with promptly.

When Should I Seek Care?

It’s time to make an appointment with your hearing care professional if you have severe ear pain, you notice fluid or discharge coming out of your ear, or your symptoms persist for more than a day. An early diagnosis and treatment is the best action for a smooth recovery. If you think your child or baby has an ear infection, we recommend making an appointment for them straight away, to check their overall ear health and prevent further damage with the appropriate treatment.

4.  Swimmer’s Ear

People are most at risk of developing swimmer’s ear if they are frequent swimmers or spend a lot of time in warm, humid environments. Swimmer’s ear is an infection that happens when the skin inside the ear canal gets infected. This can happen when water gets trapped inside the ear, which can create a breeding ground for bacteria. This can cause the ear canal to become inflamed and swollen, and grow narrow or blocked. To read more about how to prevent swimmer’s ear, especially in children, read our recent blog here.

When Should I Seek Care?

We recommend making an appointment with your hearing care professional as soon as you notice signs or symptoms of a swimmer’s ear infection, including pain, itching, muffled hearing, and a feeling of blockage and ear pressure, to prevent the infection from travelling or worsening. Some cases of infection can be treated by removing any blockage or debris in the outer ear canal, while others may need targeted treatment of medications to reduce inflammation and infection.

5.  Congestion And Sinus Pressure

If you suffer from stuffy nasal passages and sinus pressure, it may also contribute to blocked ears and muffled sounds. Your sinus cavities are hollow spaces located in your bones near the nose and between the eyes, which are beside your ear canals. So, when your sinus cavities are inflamed, your ear canals may also swell. This can close the connection between the middle ear and your throat, and put pressure on your eardrum creating a clogged ear feeling or even pain and hearing loss. This is often caused by allergies or the common cold and is a symptom of viral illnesses such as COVID-19.

When Should I Seek Care?

Fortunately, most blocked and muffled ears triggered by sinus pressure are temporary, and hearing returns to normal once the sinus congestion clears. Even so, if you experience pain or sudden hearing loss due to sinus congestion, contact your hearing care professional – they can determine the cause of your discomfort and prescribe medication to alleviate the pain and swelling.

6.  Noise Damage

Hair cells play a vital role in our hearing. We’re born with around 16,000 of them,^[1] but they’re very fragile, and can be damaged or even destroyed by loud sounds. Unfortunately, once they’re destroyed they can’t be repaired, and you’ll feel the effects of noise-induced hearing loss. Exposing your hair cells to sudden or loud noise can be compared to flowers in a hurricane that struggle to remain standing. Loud sounds from fireworks, explosions, live concerts, and even at work, can also tear a hole in your eardrum or damage the delicate bones in the middle ear. This may also trigger a sensitivity to sound or ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus. The best way to prevent this is to avoid loud environments and wear protective ear muffs when you’re exposed to loud noises.

When Should I Seek Care?

If you’re experiencing any form of hearing loss, make an appointment with your hearing care professional who can carry out a comprehensive hearing exam to check your hearing, and examine the overall health of your ears. From there they can work with you to find the best treatment to improve your symptoms.

Don’t Delay Treatment: Get Your Ears Checked Today

If one or both of your ears feel blocked or muffled and you’re concerned, it’s time to book an appointment with a qualified hearing care professional who can examine your ears, make an accurate diagnosis, rule out any underlying conditions, and get started on an appropriate treatment plan. Blocked and muffled ears can be caused by a wide range of factors, including conditions such as Meniere’s disease, balance disorders, a traumatic brain injury or concussion, certain medications such as antibiotics, loop diuretics, chemotherapy drugs, or even pain relievers like aspirin or ibuprofen. Therefore, getting formally diagnosed can provide peace of mind that you’re on the best track with your treatment.

At our clinics, our experienced hearing care professionals take a full medical history, assess your overall ear health and do a series of tests to try to find the source of the problem, and create a tailored management plan to help you manage your symptoms.

Book an appointment with our friendly team at your local centre here.

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^[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/how_does_loud_noise_cause_hearing_loss.html

Hearing ringing and buzzing sounds during the day when we’re preoccupied and have work or other tasks to distract ourselves is one thing, but why do these sounds become worse at night while we’re resting or trying to fall asleep? 

With an estimated one-quarter of the Australian workforce currently experiencing tinnitus^[1] and two in three affected at some point in their lives ^[2], here’s a look into why you may be hearing ringing in your ears, what’s causing it, and why it often becomes worse at night.

Tinnitus Causes The Ringing In Your Ears

The reason you hear the ringing in the first place is due to a condition called tinnitus, which is when you hear a sound in one or both ears despite there being no cause for the sound around us (‘external’ sound). Most people will be familiar with a short-lived form of tinnitus after being exposed to loud noises at a movie theatre or a concert, for example – but many people live with ongoing tinnitus as a result of age-related changes, hearing loss, and damage to the ear or auditory system.

Tinnitus is not actually a condition or a disease, but a symptom that may indicate that something is going wrong somewhere along the auditory system, which includes the ear, the auditory nerve (which connects the ear to the brain), and the parts of the brain that interpret the sounds we hear.

Why Does Tinnitus Get Worse At Night?

Our days are often filled with lots of external sounds, both ones we’re very aware of like people talking to us and television sets, and ones we may be less aware of but are always happening, like cars driving past, noises from people walking past, and even our own voice. Our brain is constantly working hard to interpret the sound waves from all of these things and create the corresponding sound for us to hear.

In the evenings, we tend to wind down and there tends to be less noise from the environment around us. The quietness can be confusing to our brain, which may not be able to tell if it really is just very quiet around us, or if there’s some miscommunication happening with the way that sound messages are being relayed between the ear and brain, and it’s a problem that needs to be fixed. So the brain turns up its sensitivity to try to detect sound, producing more electrical signals, which leads to tinnitus and worsens the ringing in our ears ^[3].

The volume of the ringing may reach a peak right when we’re lying down to fall asleep, as there are suddenly fewer senses for your brain to manage – no light means no visual information to process, and no moving around means little sensory information aside from what we feel when lying down. This can lead to our brain focusing on our auditory system and amplifying the noise.

What Makes Tinnitus Worse?

According to research, the most common things that make tinnitus worse aside from being in a quiet place are mental or emotional stress, having recently been in a very noisy environment, being in a noisy place, and not getting enough sleep ^[4].

Other reasons that are either reported in the research or reported to our ear health professionals have included excess ear wax build-up, taking certain medication or supplements, feeling dehydrated, consuming a diet high in sodium, sugar, or caffeine, smoking and alcohol, allergies and food sensitivities, and medical issues – specifically a temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ).

In any of these cases, it’s not always the volume or intensity of the tinnitus that may increase, but the tone or pitch of the tinnitus may change to be notably less pleasant. 

How Can I Stop Tinnitus At Night?

Given that silent conditions are a key exacerbator of tinnitus, a way to help lessen the effects of tinnitus at night is by strategically using sound in a way that doesn’t interrupt your sleep or rest while keeping the brain busy and avoiding signaling to the brain that it needs to work harder to hear. You can try to do this at home using simple solutions like:

• A white noise machine that plays gentle rain sounds, wind sounds, wave sounds, or something else like relaxing music.
• If you don’t have a white noise machine, you can play a ‘white noise’ playlist for free from Spotify or Youtube
• Keep a fan on at night

Hearing Aids

Our audiology team also prescribes innovative and custom hearing aids, which help tinnitus in a number of ways. Our hearing aids can help your brain better focus on the external sounds in your environment by improving your overall hearing, which in turn masks the tinnitus ringing sounds. Hearing aids can also retrain the brain to classify tinnitus sounds as ‘unimportant’ so they’re less noticeable and much easier to ignore – much like how sounds like the wind in the trees are typically classed as unimportant, so isn’t at the forefront of your hearing and concentration.  Your hearing aids can also feature:

• Rechargeability on the go
• Connectivity to phone and television
• Fall detection
• Translation and other AI features

How Our Ear Care Professionals Can Help

Whether your tinnitus at night is disrupting your ability to sleep and therefore stay alert throughout the day, or you’ve recently developed tinnitus and you’re looking for professional care, we can help. 

At your appointment, your ear care professional will assess your overall ear health, help to uncover the underlying cause of your tinnitus, and create a tailored management plan to help you manage your symptoms and reduce the severity of the ringing sound you hear. As tinnitus has a variety of causes, getting a professional assessment to address these causes can quickly help make your daily life more comfortable.

Book an appointment with one of our experienced, professional, and friendly hearing team today at your local centre here. 

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^[1] https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2022/216/4/prevalence-tinnitus-australian-working-population

^[2] https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/tinnitus

^[3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus:+theory+and+management&author=RA+Dobie&publication_year=2004&

^[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4757018/

Are you hearing a high-pitched ringing, buzzing, or chirping sound that won’t go away?

Having a ringing noise in your ears start suddenly can raise alarm bells, leaving many Australians feeling concerned about what’s going on, what could be causing it, and if it could be a sign that something may be wrong with their hearing or their health.

Medically speaking, the ringing in your ears is called tinnitus and is described as any noise that occurs in the ears without the presence of any external sound. While tinnitus can feel very isolating, it is estimated to affect 2 out of every 3 Australians at some point in their lives.^[1] Here’s a look into what tinnitus really means, what causes it, and what you should do when you hear that ringing start.

Tinnitus: The Ringing In Your Ears

Tinnitus may be a sign that something is malfunctioning in one or multiple parts of the auditory system, which is made up of the ear, the auditory nerve which connects the ear to the brain, and the parts of the brain that make sense of the sounds we hear. Interestingly, tinnitus is not a condition or disease in and of itself but may be a symptom of many other possible conditions. Hence, an important part of managing tinnitus is identifying this underlying cause.

What does tinnitus sound like?

Interestingly, every person’s experience of tinnitus is unique, often going far beyond a one-noted ringing to whooshing sounds, buzzing, clicking, hissing, or even shrieking, roaring, or musical sounds.^[2] Tinnitus can be gentle or loud, high-pitched or low, and it can be present in either one or both ears.

How long does tinnitus last?

Many of us are familiar with the feeling of ringing in our ears after listening to blaring music at a live concert – and in most cases, tinnitus will last mere minutes or a few days,[3] often resolving on its own. For others, tinnitus can persevere for years[4] and is often loud and persistent, worsening over time. This kind of tinnitus can cause severe disruption to a person’s ability to sleep,[5] concentrate and hear the people around them,[6] which is why tinnitus can also lead to fatigue, and depression and affect a person’s overall quality of life.^[7]

What Causes Tinnitus?

While many can’t pinpoint a cause for their tinnitus, there is a range of known causes and contributors. For some, it may be as simple as a piece of wax blocking the ear canal. For others, it may be linked to:

• – A side effect of medication: More than 200 prescription and over-the-counter drugs list tinnitus as a known side effect, and they can trigger tinnitus or cause it to worsen by affecting the nerves of the ear. These medications include aspirin and ibuprofen, certain antibiotics and anticonvulsants, antimalarial drugs, certain cancer drugs, and tricyclic antidepressants.

• – Blood flow issues: A rare type of tinnitus named pulsatile tinnitus sounds like pulsing in the ear, which is rhythmic and in time with your heartbeat. It usually indicates a change in blood flow to the vessels near the ear or an increase in awareness of the blood flow to the ear.^[11]

• – Musculoskeletal factors: Clenching your jaw, grinding your teeth, and neck muscle tension can make the symptoms of tinnitus more noticeable and severe.^[12]

• – Neurological factors: Rarely, a disorder such as Meniere’s disease, can affect the brain’s ability to process sound, resulting in tinnitus.^[13]

Is The Tinnitus Sound In My Ears Or In My Head?

The way that we hear any sound, from music on our radio to people talking or dogs barking, is when sound waves enter our ear canal. Tiny hair cells within our ear pick up on these sounds and send messages to the brain through the auditory nerve, and our brain makes sense of what we are hearing. The way our brain interprets these sounds determines what we hear. When these hair cells get damaged by things such as loud noises, medications, or infection, our brain doesn’t receive the sound signals adequately, and it essentially turns up its sensitivity to sound in an effort to try to find a signal – much like turning up the volume on your radio when you’re trying to find a station. This increase in electrical signals can cause the brain to create the illusion of sounds – ultimately leading to tinnitus.^[14]

What Can I Do To Prevent And Manage Tinnitus?

While many cases of tinnitus resolve themselves within a few hours or days, the first step to help prevent and manage tinnitus is to identify the underlying cause, given that the ringing in the ears is a symptom and not a problem of its own. This is where your hearing care professional can help with a comprehensive assessment to determine whether the tinnitus can be related to the structure or function of your ears.

Helpful tinnitus management strategies can include:

• – Protecting your ears: If you expose your ears to loud noises at work or at home, it’s important to reduce your risk of damage by using non-invasive noise protector earmuffs. Opt for these rather than earplugs as they can push the wax into your ear if used incorrectly.

• – Considering a hearing aid: Hearing amplification often improves the perception of tinnitus. The amplification of environmental sounds covers (masks) the sound of tinnitus. This makes it more difficult to consciously perceive tinnitus and helps the brain focus on the outside, ambient noises. The masking impact of hearing aids is particularly strong for patients who have hearing loss in the same frequency range as their tinnitus. Hearing aids can be an effective mode of sound therapy and have a sound masking feature that is proven to reduce tinnitus in many people who are also experiencing hearing loss.^[15] Hearing aids are designed to improve the perception of speech and to make background noise easier to hear, which helps to mask the troubling symptoms of tinnitus.

• – Try gentle background music: Increasing ambient noise can help you stop focusing on the sounds of your tinnitus. Some people find playing background music or radio can be beneficial, while white noise could be a great asset to include in your sleep routine when the house is quiet.

• – Seeking support therapies: There is a wide range of therapies available that have been shown to provide long-term and consistent relief from tinnitus,^[16] which you can be referred to by your audiologist.

• – Avoiding certain medications: Some medications can cause or worsen tinnitus by altering the nerves in the ear, so it’s a good idea to read the information documents with your medications and discuss these with your doctor if they are concerning you.

• – Implementing relaxation tools: Worrying about tinnitus will make it more noticeable, so learning relaxation techniques through mindfulness, muscle relaxation, meditation, or breathing exercises can help to provide relief.

• – Taking care of your general health: Your overall physical health can affect the severity and impact of tinnitus, so keeping a watchful eye over your diet, physical activity, and sleep will help your body to be better equipped to heal and restore anything that is physically contributing to your tinnitus.

Book An Appointment With A Hearing Care Professional

If you’re experiencing tinnitus, booking an appointment with a hearing care professional will allow them to assess your overall ear health, help to uncover the underlying cause of your tinnitus, and create a tailored management plan to help you manage your symptoms.

At our clinics, our experienced hearing care professionals will take a full medical history, give your ears a physical examination, and do a series of tests to try to find the source of the problem. If necessary, they can refer you to your doctor for a further otological investigation to rule out retrocochlear pathologies.

As part of your assessment, they may ask questions about the noise you’re hearing (such as its pitch and whether it’s constant or intermittent) and the situations in which you hear it. We will analyse your current and past exposure to noise, and any medications or supplements you’re taking and will carry out hearing tests to determine whether your tinnitus indicates a problem in the auditory system.

For prolonged or severe tinnitus, if you’re an eligible candidate, our hearing care professionals may be able to create custom hearing aids to minimise the disruption of tinnitus as much as possible using a tinnitus masking feature.

Don’t let your tinnitus get in the way of you living the life you wish to lead. Book an appointment with one of our friendly audiologists today at your local centre here.

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^[1] https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/tinnitus

^[2]https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=weJtKjIYf3sC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&ots=nITRJYcRt_&sig=JsJ2hu_fAL0UEDhABcPvfTk0Fd8

^[3]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus+theory+and+management&author=JA+Kaltenbach&author=J+Zhang&author=MA+Zacharek&publication_year=2004&

^[4]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1642568

^[5]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus+Retraining+Therapy&author=PJ+Jastreboff&author=JW+Hazell&publication_year=2004&

^[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4074979

^[7]https://www.proquest.com/openview/1d1a1774a56ff34963a88c41e3149318/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1056335

^[8] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26645752/ 

^[9] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1882967

^[10] https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/tinnitus

^[11] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18632767

^[12]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus:+theory+and+management&author=RA+Levin&publication_year=2004& 

^[13] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1882967

^[14]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus:+theory+and+management&author=RA+Dobie&publication_year=2004&

^[15]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Tinnitus+treatment&author=RL+Folmer&author=WH+Martin&author=Y+Shi&author=LL+Edlefsen&publication_year=2006&

^[16] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686891/