Question: Hello, I have recently suffered an outer ear infection. I went though a horrible ordeal with the ear drop antibiotic ciprodex. The ear drop caused my ear canal to swell and my hearing to become very muffled. My ear was filled with fluid and the pressure in my ear was very intense. After I stopped the ciprodex I was put on oral antibiotics which I had to stop after they caused bad stomach problems.

I have now been administering acetic acid with hydrocortisone 5 times daily. The ear canal swelling is gone. My pain is gone except a little tenderness which is steadily improving. My only problem is I still have a muffled hearing. When I change positions my ear will pop and sometimes I can hear clearly but then it becomes muffled again. Sometimes it’s plugged so that when i talk it echoes in my head very loud. It does not seem like there is fluid in my ear like before. This feels more like when your ears are plugged up from elevation change except I am sitting in one spot.

I’m wondering if this is a normal side effect of a healing outer ear infection or if something in my ear was damaged by the ear drops? Do you think this muffled feeling will go away on its own and in how much time? Have you seen cases like this before where the patients hearing returned to normal?

Thank you very much