Archive for December, 2011

With diving, snorkelling, and particularly scuba diving the potential trauma endured by your eardrums by exposing your body to varying pressures can be quite severe, anyone that’s ever been scuba diving will know that to ascend from a few metres down too quickly you can cause severe trauma and even perforation of the eardrums.

Perforated eardrums can heal all by themselves over time, but sometimes surgery is needed to repair a perforated eardrum if the tear is severe enough. A result is often a degree of hearing loss, quite often this is permanent and hearing aids may be required to address that hearing loss.

Care needs to be exercised to avoid this scenario in the way you move about in the water at different varying pressures.

What happens if you already have an existing perforated eardrum, should you go diving then?

It’s not a good idea at all quite frankly, because cold water enters the middle ear, this irritates the organ responsible for our sense of balance. This in turn causes a strong sense of dizziness, a loss of orientation, distorted vision and even unconsciousness.

As an occasional scuba diver myself, I certainly know how important it is to be alert and aware of your surroundings when you are many metres down on the seabed!