Decrease of Hearing After Facelift? It's Been Almost 2 Months and my Ears Feel Blocked.

As others have pointed out, it is possible to have retained material in the ear canals.  Not just ear wax or blood, I have seen patients where a surgeon left cotton in the ear canal.  The cotton is used to prevent fluid from collecting in the canal.  Ask your surgeon to look in the canal.  Of course it is also possible that you are just an aging rock and roller and this is actual natural hearing loss.

Please see your surgeon or an ENT to check this out. They can remove whatever it is that's causing the blockage, whether it's wax, blood or other obstruction.

I have seen this a few times.  Typically it is related to ear wax which gets further plugged with dry blood.  Your surgeon can clean this for you or you can see an ENT specialist.

You should get your ears checked out by an ear, nose, throat (otolaryngologist) to see what is going on. You may have dried blood or something else plugging up the ear canal. A thorough examination would help figure out the cause.

This is probably blood or gauze- dental role that has filled your ear canal from the surgery.  You should see your surgeon and if need be an ENT surgeon to assess your ear canal.  It would be extremely unlikely this is anything else if it came on immediately after Facelift surgery.  After your ears are cleaned you could undergo a hearing test.   Typically I place a small piece of dental role in the ear canal when performing facelifting or Parotidectomy surgery to prevent blood filling the canal.

the initial swelling of the ear canal can occur and cause problems for several weeks

someone should look inside however to make sure there is no dried blood. wax or packing that may have been place during the surgery

During facelift surgery, I routinely place a sterile gauze in my patients' ears to prevent blood from accumulating. Occasionally the gauze may fall out and blood can enter the ear canal and impair hearing. You should consider consulting a reputable ENT specialist to discuss your concerns. If you have wax and blood in your ears from facelift surgery, this may be delicately removed.

Hope this helps.

Dr. Joseph

If your plastic surgeon has examined your ear canals and verified that there is no blockage, you should consult with an ENT surgeon to have your hearing evaluated.

You may want to have your ear canals checked by an ENT physician. Most probably you will have some dry blood or ear wax obstructing your ear canal and therefore decreasing your hearing. There is no correlation with a facelift and decrease hearing. You may also now be more aware of a loss or decrease hearing, so a audiology hearing test can be done to see if you have any hearing loss. Hope this helps,Dr. Diaz

I have never seen permanent hearing loss after a facelift. As a rule of thumb, we use special ear plugs to protect the ear canal during surgery and they are removed immediately after surgery. We also irrigate the ear afterwards, using extreme caution. Although very rare it is possible to get an ear infection s/p a facelift in which case antibiotic ear drops would be used. You could follow up with your surgeon to check for an infection or residual swelling.