Tilt your head sideways so the affected ear faces down toward your shoulder.
Set a handheld hair dryer to its lowest heat and speed settings. Hold it approximately one foot (30 cm) away from your ear and let the warm air blow inside for a few minutes to evaporate the moisture.
Intense itching inside the canal or visible redness on the outer ear points to a fungal or bacterial issue.
: Tilt your head so the affected ear faces the ground and gently jiggle your earlobe to straighten the canal and encourage drainage. muffled hearing after swimming patched
The feeling of having a "patched" or clogged ear after swimming is most commonly due to one of three primary causes:
The most frequent cause of muffled hearing is simply a physical blockage. Water enters the ear canal and gets trapped behind a curve in the canal or a small build-up of earwax. This creates a "surface tension" seal that prevents sound waves from reaching the eardrum effectively.
Inserting cotton swabs, bobby pins, or fingers into the ear canal is highly dangerous. Instead of removing water or wax, these objects typically push the debris deeper, compacting it against the eardrum and worsening the blockage. They can also scratch the delicate skin of the ear canal, creating an entry point for bacteria. Tilt your head sideways so the affected ear
Tilt your head to the side with the blocked ear facing down and gently tug on your earlobe to straighten the canal.
This is an infection of the outer ear canal skin, typically caused by bacteria found in pools, lakes, or oceans. The infection causes the canal walls to swell shut, muffling sound.
Muffled hearing—often described as a blocked, muffled, or "underwater" sensation—typically indicates that sound waves are not reaching your inner ear properly. With a patched eardrum, this is usually caused by one of three factors: Intense itching inside the canal or visible redness
If water is trapped behind wax, the methods above won't work. You need to soften the wax.
If your muffled hearing is caused by swollen earwax, a cotton swab will act like a plunger, compacting the wax tightly against your eardrum and making the blockage much worse.
Swimmer’s ear requires medical treatment. A doctor will need to examine your ear and prescribe antibiotic ear drops to clear the infection safely. When to See a Doctor