Eardrum Rupture / Tympanoplasty
The eardrum or tympanic membrane is a three-layered thin membrane that separates your external ear from the middle ear (eardrum). This membrane plays an important role in hearing.
The tympanic membrane or eardrum performs two major roles:
Hearing – vibration of the eardrum helps in translating sound waves into nerve impulses and helps in hearing
Protection – The tympanic membrane protects the middle ear from microbes, water, and other foreign objects.
A hole or tear, or perforation in the tympanic membrane, which is otherwise known as a ruptured eardrum, can result in hearing loss. A perforated eardrum makes your middle ear susceptible to infections as well.
If a ruptured eardrum doesn’t heal on its own, then it requires surgical intervention. Tympanoplasty procedure or tympanoplasty surgery is a surgical procedure to repair a ruptured eardrum.
What are the signs and symptoms of a ruptured tympanic membrane?
The signs and symptoms of a ruptured tympanic membrane include the following:
- Ear pain
- Hearing loss
- Vertigo or spinning sensation
- Nausea or vomiting sensation
- Tinnitus or ringing in ears
- Drainage of blood, pus, clear fluid or mucus
Pain is the main symptom of ruptured eardrum. In some cases, the pain may be severe. The pain can remain steady throughout the day, or can be intermittent – increase or decrease in intensity. Usually, the ear begins to drain once pain goes away. From the ruptured eardrum watery, bloody, or pus-filled fluids drain out.
Middle ear infection usually causes bleeding. This is more likely to happen in young children, people with colds or flu, or in areas with poor air quality. You may have some temporary hearing loss or a reduction in hearing in the affected ear. You can also experience tinnitus, a constant ringing or buzzing in the ears, or dizziness.
What are the Causes of a ruptured eardrum?
- Middle ear infection
- Pressure Injury
- Water diving
- Aeroplane travel (Aero otitis media)
- Driving at high altitudes (Mountains)
- Shock waves
- Direct, forceful impact to the ear
- Trauma
- Barotrauma – severe environmental pressure can rupture the eardrum. This is often associated with air travel, scuba diving
- Acoustic Trauma (Excessive loud sound exposure)
- Direct trauma with any object to clean the ear
- Foreign objects in your ear
- Impact trauma over the pinna (Slap, road traffic accident, any object hitting the ear)
- Severe head trauma
Conservative Management: Eardrum hole repair without surgery – how?
There is a possibility of perforated or ruptured eardrums healing on their own within a few weeks. Doctors also try to speed up eardrum hole repair without surgery by prescribing antibiotics – if they suspect any infection to be the cause.
Eardrum ruptures usually heals within three to four weeks. In addition to antibiotics, doctors also prescribe painkillers, decongestants and eardrops in various combinations.
They allow the symptoms to ease and eardrum to heal on itself. However, if they find that the initial treatment is not relieving symptoms and healing the ruptured eardrum, they will suggest eardrum patch or tympanoplasty to close the hole.
Tympanoplasty in Hyderabad
When a conservative treatment approach doesn’t heal a perforated eardrum, then your Ent doctor will suggest a tympanoplasty procedure. In Hyderabad, it is the most common procedure to treat a ruptured eardrum. Your ENT surgeon uses a patch of your own tissue to close the perforation in the tympanic membrane.
Is It Possible to Prevent a Ruptured Eardrum?
The following are the three important steps you can take to prevent a ruptured eardrum:
- Avoid putting any object into your ear — not even to clean it
- Treat your ear infections promptly – to ensure this, see your ENT specialist
- It’s also important to see a doctor to remove a foreign object in your ear rather than trying to remove it yourself.
Tympanoplasty doctor in Hyderabad
An ENT specialist or an ear specialist doctor who specializes in tympanoplasty examines your ear carefully to determine whether you have a ruptured or perforated eardrum. The doctor uses an otoscope or microscope (an instrument mounted with light) to visually inspect your ear. Your ENT specialist may perform additional tests or order such tests to determine the root cause of your symptoms and to determine whether you have hearing loss.