For anyone with chronic ETD who has felt dismissed for years by ENT’s.
I have had ETD for as long as I can remember. I have had off an on fullness especially bad in one ear for decades and have a great deal of pain when flying or driving mountain passes, often in spite of utilizing Afrin, Sudafed and earplanes. It has really impacted my quality of life as many of you can relate. I have had ear tubes, which end up getting stuck or falling out, balloon dilation (no improvement at all) and tried all of the BS nasal spray routes as well as had successful FESS surgery which helped my sinuses but did nothing to improve my ETD.
After TONS of research, I discovered that cartilage graft tympanoplasty (not a tympanostomy which are ear tubes) surgery could very likely be the answer I have been searching for. My membranes had become thin over the years and my eardrum was retracted even though half of the time I was tested my tympanogram would look normal. Other times I tested it showed retraction. The test is not always accurate. You know when you have negative pressure. It hurts and the Valsalva etc do nothing to relieve the pressure.
I stopped going to regular ENT’s and made appointments with several ent SPECIALISTS who regularly perform ear surgeries. The first 2 blew me off, soooo frustrating, but the next 2 said they thought cartilage graft tympanoplasty with T tube placement surgery would help immensely. If you research using AI you will discover how the thinking about long term chronic ETD treatment is FINALLY changing. I encourage any of you who are dealing with chronic ETD and have ever had an abnormal tymp test to make an appointment with a specialist to talk about the possibility of a cartilage graft tympanoplasty with an ear tube placement. Note: a tympanoplasty is a surgery that repairs a hole in the eardrum that develops due to chronic ETD overtime. The thinking used to be that you could not repair an eardrum if you had chronic ETD because the ETD would just keep causing ear retraction. The discovery was that by adding cartilage graft and T tube it stabilizes the eardrum so it does not continue to retract thus allowing the Eustachian tube to do its job. See below:
“The medical community has traditionally viewed ETD as a functional issue of the inner tube rather than a structural issue of the eardrum itself. Because a tympanoplasty is specifically a surgery to repair the tympanic membrane (eardrum) or middle ear bones, many traditional practitioners historically ruled it out unless a large permanent hole was present. However, reconstructing a chronically weak, retracted eardrum with a sturdy graft can stabilize the middle ear space, stop the painful structural collapsing, and drastically improve quality of life.”