When your ears are giving you trouble due to a hearing difficulty, chronic ear infections, or other ear-related ailments, you can feel isolated from your friends, family, and co-workers, and disconnected from the way you’d like to live your life.
If you or a loved one have an ear or hearing concern, please call one of our convenient locations. We look forward to serving you.
Conditions We Treat
Cholesteatoma
Cholesteatomas are abnormal growths of skin tissue within the middle ear, caused by problems such as ear infection.
Conductive Hearing Loss
Conductive hearing loss occurs when disease, trauma, infection, or another problem causes sound waves to travel poorly through the outer ear canal to the eardrum, the middle ear’s three tiny bones, and the inner ear.
Dizziness and Motion Sickness
Symptoms such as lightheadedness, nausea, blurred vision, and a feeling of unsteadiness may point to dizziness or motion sickness, which involve balance and equilibrium, both controlled by the body’s vestibular system.
Earaches and Otitis Media
Ear pain in one or both ears may be a symptom of otitis media, inflammation of the middle ear. This may be caused by an infection.
Middle-Ear Infection (Chronic Otitis Media) and Hearing Loss
Middle-ear infections aren’t unusual in childhood, but sometimes they keep coming back or won’t clear up with antibiotic treatment. They can lead to serious problems such as hearing loss and should be addressed quickly.
Hyperacusis
Hyperacusis is a disorder involving heightened sensitivity to common sounds such as running water, the crunch of leaves, and other everyday noises that typically would not annoy or alarm most people.
Otosclerosis
Otosclerosis is a disease of abnormal bone growth in the middle ear. It mainly causes gradual hearing loss in one or both ears but also includes other symptoms such as tinnitus and vertigo.
Autoimmune Inner-Ear Disease
Autoimmune inner-ear disease is a rare condition in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks normal inner-ear cells as if they were a virus or bacteria. The resultant inflammation causes rapidly progressive hearing loss and includes other symptoms such as tinnitus, balance problems, and the feeling of plugged ears.
Ear Infections
Ear infections may be viral, bacterial, or fungal in nature, and they typically can cause mild temporary hearing loss or — in the case of repeated and untreated infections — more severe or permanent hearing impairment.
Perforated Eardrum
A perforated eardrum involves a rupture, tear, or hole in the tympanic membrane between the ear canal and middle ear. Causes can include head injury, barotrauma, fluid buildup from infection, a sudden explosive sound, or an object pushed into the ear.
Swimmer’s Ear
Swimmer’s ear is an outer-ear infection typically caused by bacterial or fungal growth when the skin in the ear canal becomes macerated from activities such as swimming, allowing microbes to infect the ear canal. It can cause pain, fever, temporary hearing loss, and other symptoms but is treatable.
Treatment Options
Ear Tubes
Ear tubes or tympanostomy tubes are small cylinders surgically inserted in the eardrum to relieve chronic ear infection or persistent middle-ear fluid. Ear-tube insertion is especially common for children.
Buying a Hearing Aid
Hearing aids come in many sizes, styles, features, and capabilities to improve hearing, but it’s important to start with a hearing test. Licensed audiologists — whether independent or on staff at an ENT office — are trained to evaluate hearing, determine the type of hearing loss, and recommend the appropriate hearing technology for your lifestyle and listening needs.
Stapedectomy
The surgeon uses a prosthetic device to act in place of the malfunctioning stapes bone, which conducts sound to the inner ear, effectively restoring the ability to hear. Some hearing loss may persist after the stapedectomy, and the procedure may also worsen hearing, though this is rare
Tympanoplasty
Problems in the middle ear, which contains the eardrum and three small, critical bones for hearing, can lead to chronic infection and even hearing loss. Tympanoplasty involves repairing eardrum damage such as a hole or tear — often caused by infection, injury, or a congenital issue — by patching it with tissue usually from the patient’s own body. The typically outpatient procedure, when appropriate, can potentially stop chronic ear infection and improve hearing. If you’re having difficulties in one or both ears, ask our expert team about a diagnostic evaluation and a treatment plan for your specific needs.