Ear Drum Rupture from apnea?

Hi folks,

About five years ago I woke up with a burst ear drum. I thought I just had an ear infection that started overnight, but when I got out of bed I realized my ear was actually bleeding. The docs at the ER were totally perplexed, after I confirmed I had not been hit on the head, scuba diving, or on an airplane, went crazy thinking I had a brain tumor or something. The ENT specialist I saw a few days later said it was just from blocked sinuses, and the pressure had to escape somewhere so it went up the eustachian tube from sinus to ear.

But I always wondered why it happened while I slept. Anyone else hear of this happening during an apneic episode?

Since then I sleep near an HEPA air filter to keep congestion down...

Sonya

Were you using CPAP 5 years ago when this happened?

Nope, I only got diagnosed last month.

This is interesting to me, because I have been wondering whether a persistently recurring earache might be due to CPAP. My earache started several years ago during knee surgery recovery in a hospital. I told my orthopedic surgeon about the pain. He and another doctor looked in my ear and said they couldn't see anything wrong. I didn't connect the earache to the surgery at that time. However, my jaw also was very sore. I told one my nurses about that and she explained that I had stopped breathing during surgery and the anesthesiologist had pulled my jaw up hard to try to clear my airway. It wasn't until a few days later that I realized that he also probably applied a lot of air pressure to splint my airway, and that could be why my ear ached.

Since that time I have had recurring earaches and recently noticed that my ear aches most following nights when my Auto CPAP pressure is highest. Have any of you had earaches that seem to be associated with CPAP treatment pressures?

I know if I yawn or swallow weird when connected to my machine I can get some pretty strong pressure on my ear drums which usually bothers me.

My personal unprofessional opinion is that simply having an apnea episode while not using cpap would be unlikely to cause major pressure on your ear drum but who knows!? maybe the lungs trying to draw in air while the airway is blocked off could cause some weird pressures or vacuums or something. I would think that the obstruction would have to be farther up near your sinuses rather than in your throat for that to happen, but thats just me.

just because an "ear" aches doesn't mean the problem is in the ear - you got all kinds of nerves and muscles in the area that can refer pain to the ear - got lots of t-shirts on that and keep earning more

now for a burst ear drum, yes something happened to create that and sinus infection backing up seems reasonable

I don't think I had a sinus infection, though. I think everything is just swollen from allergies. In fact, I think my sleep apnea is mostly upper airway resistance -- big tonsils, adenoids, and turbinates, with deviated septum. I only have about 5 HPI per hour, my lowest O2 was 88%. But I never went into REM sleep during the sleep study. I couldn't breathe well enough to relax enough to get into all stages of sleep.

Anyhoo, I'm wondering if something about having air stuck between my throat (stopped from apnea) and my sinuses (airway resistance from blocked sinuses) did it.