There must be a gadget for this

[cjsmith]

Plague is still hanging on in an annoying way. I'm not incapacitated, but I'm exhausted from coughing instead of sleeping all night, and I'd give a lot to make my ears pop.

It would be great to find some kind of pain medicine that can make an exhaustion headache recede. My eyeballs are the wrong size for my skull. Excuse me, sir, I'd like to return these. They don't fit. ... Yes, that's okay, I'll take one blue and one green. I'm not going anywhere fancy for the next week. Do those come with glasses?

What I'd really like, though, is some kind of gumdigit to force my ears to pop. (The clever tricks for this work -- or mostly, don't -- on healthy heads.) When I am Queen I'll set a team of scholars to work on it. The gadget might be very simple. Poke a small glass rod up into the little canal until it goes SQFFFFFT and lets all the air in. Yeah, maybe it would need to have a channel indented along the edge to help break the seal; don't bother me with details. Think of all the human suffering that could be alleviated! We have neti pots, for goodness' sake; why not this? Somebody needs to invent it and then sell one to me. Bonus points for hanging around to show me how to find the little canal.

Comments

[platypus]

I find that the maximum dose of Mucinex will clear up my ears. It's a miracle drug. (Well, it's guaifenesin, but it's lots and lots of guaifenesin.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Guaifenesin hasn't been doing much for me, but maybe I haven't been taking enough of it. When I have some on hand that's unmixed with anything else, I usually go beyond taking too much and venture into the realm of taking way WAY too much. :)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

My Eustachian tubes usually fill up with air, though. I want to let it out! :-)

If you're taking Guaf, one thing I had to learn was that it doesn't work unless you stay very hydrated. Of course, for me and my high medication tolerance, it still isn't fantastic, but it works a little.

And how go those plans on become Queen, anyway? ;-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Still not Queen. :-) But I think I would have MUCH more fun biology and chemistry labs in my Kingdom. C'mon, making drugs? Awesome! Making ear-canal-poke rods and trying them out on your lab partners? Isn't that more fun than chopping up an innocent frog? :-)

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

ear candling, if you're willing to do weird shit like that. I'm not.

shit tons of water.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I thought ear candling was more for overpressure - pulls the air through. Does it work for under, too? Under is the thing I cannot fix on my own.

O'course, willingness to do weird shit is still a question. I've never tried that and I'm not sure I'd be willing to.

also in the realm of weird stuff

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

not sure if it will "pop" your ears, but it will clear out any "baddies" in there:

lay on yr side and pour a little 3% hydrogen peroxide in. Let it sit in your ear for a while. It will fizz a little or a lot.

I've had people tell me that I shouldn't recommend 3% for this -- saying that some people find that is too strong. Could be? I've used 3% for this purpose dozens of times, and don't find it too strong. But, YMMV.

I think this also qualifies as "weird stuff", but I'm a bit out-of-touch with the ongoing revisions to criteria for that....

:)

Re: also in the realm of weird stuff

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I used to do that for swimmer's ear when I was a child. I'd forgotten all about it! There is no other sensation quite like cold fizzy hydrogen peroxide slithering into my ear.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i've often been tempted to pour boiling water into my ears to see if that unclogs them (needless to say, i haven't :))

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hah! I'd want a local anesthetic that lasts for a week. :)