You've already read about the many treatments I've tried, most gleaned from those helpful folks out in cyberspace, thank you, all you BPPV and ear crackling sufferers. Sadly, the only thing that reliably produces silence is immersing my head in hot water. The golden silence gained from tubbing lasts a good fifteen minutes. Not quite long enough to get to sleep but certainly better than zero. I've tried without success to replicate the conditions outside the tub by pouring hot water into my ear while leaning over the kitchen sink. I get wet but the hiss goes on. I admit, I've considered hot oil and hot wax, but I'm pretty sure that would lead to a sheepish trip to the ER, which is not where we want to be at this point in the burgeoning plague.
Ever hopeful, I've been trying other things willy-nilly without keeping good records, so I can't really tell what might be working. For example, someone on the Internet suggested chewing gum. I went to the store to buy gum. Gum is an impulse item, found near the cash register. Who knew! Generally I ignore everything that is not related to arranging my groceries on the conveyor belt according to how I want the items to appear on my receipt. It's easier to do my record-keeping that way—the zucchini and broccoli aren't disrupted by the toothpaste and coffee filters. Nice and organized, you should try it.
Anyway, so there I am actually forcing myself to look at the impulse items. I have no idea what I'm looking at. I see something that looks like it could be bubble gum. I don't care, I grab it and toss it on the belt. When I get home, I'm sort of excited to see what it feels like to chew gum. I haven't chewed gum in years. What a miracle it would be if chewing gum was all it took to open up my dysfunctional Eustachian tube. I opened the package and discovered what I had purchased was some sort of chewy candy. I sucked on it, disappointed, peering at the package. Two hundred and forty calories! Per piece! I spat it out in the trash and chucked the package after it.
I refused to admit defeat. On my next weekly foray into the dangerous grocery store, masked and gloved as usual, I applied myself again to the challenge of identifying gum at the checkout line. I found some! Sugar-free, this time, spearmint flavored. That sounded good. I bought the economically priced jumbo pack, feeling rather pleased. When I got home, I peeled off the plastic, unwrapped the silver foil covering, and popped a stick into my mouth. Yum, spearmint. Weird, though, to be chewing on something that wasn't intended to be swallowed. Still, I'm not a quitter, so I chomped diligently on the wad, monitoring my ear to see if it seemed inclined to settle down.
Like a mail-in election, results were not immediately forthcoming. I tried again with another stick. Then I had lunch. About an hour before it was time to visit Mom at the nursing home, I started feeling some alarming pains in my gut. Things clenched and unclenched, as they are wont to do, I won't give you the sordid details, but I was pretty miserable standing outside my mother's window, clenching my butt cheeks while she was in her bathroom trying to unclench hers. (I am sure I have never written the word clench so many times in my life.) As I danced in agony on the pavement, I called the Med Aide on my cellphone to send help to Mom stuck in her bathroom. She got help, and ten minutes later, she collapsed exhausted on her couch. I made it home, and after another trip to my bathroom, I looked up xylitol on the Internet. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that xylitol can cause digestive distress among some subset of the population. It's like winning the reverse lottery.
No more gum for me.
My sister suggested maybe I needed a dose of negative ions. I remembered that my therapeutic light box emits negative ions (according to the manufacturer), so I plugged in the box and pressed the button. The green light came on and a slightly acidic smell wafted toward my nose. Is that how a negative ion smells? How would you know if you were receiving a dose of negative ions? I'm asking out of curiosity. I can't imagine I'd be able to differentiate a negative ion from a coronavirus, could you?
I also heard that spices can open up sinus congestion. Ears, sinuses, Eustachian tubes . . . now I really get why those Ear Nose Throat doctors cover the territory they do. It's like a miniature version of the universe, all connected. I put some hot red pepper in my tea. That produced a coughing fit, which made tea shoot out my nose. You don't see that everyday. I hope the next time I get an ear infection, I remember to reread this blog post. I'm sure I will forget.
Well, I give up. This afternoon I sit in the dark cave surrounded by votive candles lit to honor St. Eustachian, the patron saint of crackling ears. The blinds are drawn against the heat of the day. Summer is here, more or less. It's 90°F today. We'll have a few days of heat, and I hope that will help my head stop swimming. Maybe the heat will burn out the ear infection as well. If the heat doesn't work, my last resort is telemedicine. You know what that is, right? Some kind of newfangled way to talk to a healthcare professional. Stay tuned.
