Ears won't pop

Sometimes when I sing, I get a feeling in my ears like I just drove into a valley, and they refuse to pop. It's annoying as hell because it interferes with my ability to hear, plus it's just an overall uncomfortable feeling.

Why is this happening and is there anything I can do about it?

Q-Tips.

It's probably inflamed Eustachian tubes. That could happen from an ear infection, allergies, a cold, a sore throat, a recent plane flight or underwater dive, or numerous other causes.

Go see an ENT doc. They'll put a little instrument in your ear and apply some small pressure while measuring the deflection of your eardrum. They'll also measure your hearing several ways and check for infection.

Then, depending what's wrong you'll either get some antibiotics, some allergy meds, or possible a burst dose of steroids to clear it up. If worst comes to worst and it really bothers you, they'll put a tiny tube through your eardrum so it won't happen again.

Terry D.

Another one to watch for, and be aware of, is audio nerve related.

I've been fighting a 'deadening' of perceive audio stemming from troubles in my back/neck. I get to the performance in good shape, but after lifting the speakers to the stands, carrying tube amps, etc - then strap the guitar over my shoulder - I get about one or two songs out, and 'what I hear' goes ta {censored}.

Sucks - it's like 4k killer bad, with no richness.

A couple trips to the chiropractor, and start working out again, and things improve...

yea it was happening to me too but happily now its ok!

It may well be related to your singing technique. For a while i was finding this happening to me during voice lessons, but at some point (probably when i switched teachers) this stopped happening. I guess the thing to do is to try to be aware of when you start to get this feeling and what seems to be causing it. But it's hard trying to keep your throat open without opening the eustachian tubes which i think is what's happening. So hopefully practice (and a good teacher) will help.

With all the dire suggestions above, I'd like to suggest a simpler solution. You may have a build up of ear wax. I've had that problem in the past, where every once in a while it would get blocked and it felt like there was water in it or something. You can buy ear wax removal kits at any drugstore and they work pretty well. Now I use a shower massage unit to stream water in my ears once a week or so.

If you go to a doctor regularly ask him/her to look into your ears and see if there is a wax build up. I know my doctor has some type of gun that squirts water into the ear (he actually uses stool softener; I guess ear wax can get pretty hard). The last time he had to do it, a couple of huge M&M size chunks of wax came out and I could hear my pants rubbing together on the way out of his office, it was like a whole new world opened up to me. Now I just maintain it using the shower massage.