Any damage to the auricle, the external auditory canal, as well as the structures of the middle and inner ear belongs to a large group of ENT diseases called ear injuries.
You can treat ear injuries in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology of the K + 31 Clinic.
Ear injuries are more common, but the most severe consequences are observed with injuries to the inner ear.
Kinds
Mechanical trauma to the auricle occurs most often. It can be obtained in domestic circumstances, in a road traffic accident, during sports competitions. Auricle wounds are inflicted with a sharp or blunt object, a firearm.
The auricles are exposed to thermal injuries (burns, frostbite), chemical influences (in production, in laboratories). Together with the auricle, the external auditory canal is often injured by impact, injury, burn, frostbite.
Injuries to the middle and inner ear are, as a rule, one of the components of more severe, extensive damage in the body, for example, in traumatic brain injury (TBI), fractures of the bones of the base of the skull, lower jaw. Sometimes injuries to the middle and inner ear are combined with damage to the outer ear. Much less often, isolated trauma to the deep structures of the ear is noted, which happens with barotrauma - a sharp jump in pressure between the external auditory canal and the tympanic cavity (military action, rapid immersion under water or ascent to the water surface).
Ear injury symptoms
With an injury to the auricle and external auditory canal, a whole range of symptoms can appear:
- Injuries - the presence of a wound, bleeding, accumulation of clots in the external auditory canal and hearing impairment, deformation of the auricle.
- Blunt trauma - no obvious wound, redness, hematoma, change in the shape of the cartilage of the auricle, edema.
- Burn - redness, blistering, skin detachment, with severe burns, up to tissue carbonization.
- Frostbite is pallor, which gradually changes to redness (if complete frostbite has not occurred).
- The impact of aggressive chemical compounds is the presence of limited lesions.
All these symptoms are accompanied by severe pain in the corresponding ear, hearing impairment with edema of the external auditory canal, possibly a general reaction of the body to blood loss, pain shock.
Injuries to the middle and inner ear are characterized by hearing loss, tinnitus and lumbago, dizziness, imbalance, pain in the temporal bone (especially when hematoma occurs). With an injury to the tympanic membrane - external bleeding from the tympanic cavity.
With a combination of injuries of the middle and inner ear with general trauma (TBI), fractures of the skull bones, with injuries of the outer ear, the corresponding symptoms join.