Massaging your ears allows your Eustachian tubes to open up, which promotes drainage and gets everything moving downward. Massaging your Eustachian tubes is a great way to combat ear infection pain.
Massage is a great technique to reduce the pain from an ear infection. Going to a massage therapy appointment can work to cure your pain, and you can also perform self-massage on to experience immediate relief from ear pain and infection. Massaging your ears allows your eustachian tubes to open up.
Eustachian tube massage
Using firm, steady pressure, slide your finger down until you feel a groove between your ear lobe and jaw. Trace that groove all the way down your neck to your collarbone using the same firm pressure. Repeat this process three times on each side, three times a day.
Health benefits of massaging your ears:
“It improves your hearing capacity, and it also enhances your ability to receive. It is best practiced early in the morning for 5-10 minutes,” says Akshar. Rubbing your ear stimulates the nerve endings.
When we provide office massage or seated massage at events, our therapists will always end a session with a feel-good head and ear massage of only a few minutes - and that is often all it takes to feel the benefits. Try the below ear reflexology moves out for yourself and see what works for you!
If your ears are plugged, try swallowing, yawning or chewing sugar-free gum to open your eustachian tubes. If this doesn't work, take a deep breath and try to blow out of your nose gently while pinching your nostrils closed and keeping your mouth shut.
Blocked eustachian tubes can cause several symptoms. For example, your ears may hurt or feel full. You may have ringing or popping noises in your ears. Or you may have hearing problems or feel a little dizzy.
Pop Your Ears
Popping your ears can help open the eustachian tube, allowing fluid to drain. The simplest way to pop your ears is to yawn, chew, or swallow. You may also want to try popping your ears using something called the Valsalva maneuver: Take a deep breath and hold it.
Effective Ways to Pop Your Ears
Yawning. Chewing gum. Sucking on hard candy. Using decongestants like Afrin (oxymetazoline) orSudafed (pseudoephedrine) before traveling.
You can do exercises to open up the tubes. This includes swallowing, yawning, or chewing gum. You can help relieve the “full ear” feeling by taking a deep breath, pinching your nostrils closed, and “blowing” with your mouth shut. If you think your baby may have Eustachian tube dysfunction, feed him or her.
This can happen for brief periods during air travel, but also due to allergies, sinus or ear infections, or other respiratory viruses (including COVID-19). Sudden onset of muffled hearing in one ear may signal an urgent problem requiring prompt treatment to prevent or reduce possible hearing loss.
Your ear congestion may have happened during an ear infection and never went away, or may get worse when eating certain foods, or they may have become plugged at the onset of an autoimmune condition.
If the pain and the clogging don't stop after one or two weeks, you should go see your doctor. Some more serious inner-ear infections could potentially (in rare cases) be followed by meningitis, a ruptured ear drum, or hearing loss.
Your ears will most likely go back to normal after a day if air pressure is causing your blockage. If an ear infection is behind your blocked ears, you might have to wait until your body gets rid of the virus or bacteria at work (you might need an antibiotic to speed things up). And that might take up to a week or two.
Your ears will most likely go back to normal after a couple of days if the blockage is caused by air pressure. You might have to wait for your immune system to kick in if your blockage is due to an ear infection (and, if it's the latter, antibiotics can really help). This may take up to a couple of weeks.
Muffled Hearing in One Ear
When the condition occurs in one ear, it's likely a sign of a single-sided ear infection, a clogged ear or earwax buildup.
You can also perform self-massage to experience immediate relief from ear pain and infection. Massaging your ears allows your Eustachian tubes to open up, which promotes drainage and gets everything moving downward. Massaging your Eustachian tubes is a great way to combat ear infection pain.
The Gravity/Jiggling Technique.
Lie on the ground with your affected ear parallel to the floor, tilt your head and jiggle your earlobe. Gravity will take care of the rest! You can use a cotton swab to remove any water remaining in your ears.
People complained about a blocked ear after a flight, due to cold, due to swimming, or in case of any influenza, etc. Some other causes, when no triggers are involved, causes can be ear wax, stuck fluid, or fungal infections. OTC treatments like swallowing, yawning, Valsalva maneuver, and chewing can help.