To start I want to express that I have not been diagnosed but have been trying my hardest to see a proper ENT/doctor for 6 months without success (classic Canadian healthcare). Anyways, going down a bunch of internet rabbit holes I believe it might be ES. I have the following symptoms:
feeling of something lodged, stuck in the back right side of throat, sometimes hard to swallow
Occasional headaches in right side of head
ear aches and constant feeling of fullness in ear
But the absolute worst of all
clicking/squeaking/cracking sound in right ear
This sound is driving me absolutely crazy. It does not happen on its own. Only when I moved my head and neck certain directions but always happens when I voluntarily move my soft palate.
Has anyone experienced this? If so what was it and is it treatable
Welcome to our forum, @CarterK! I’m sorry you’re stuck in the muck of the medical situation in CA. We do have a couple of doctors who are familiar w/ ES listed for your province which is the good news as many CA provinces do not have any doctor who is familiar with or willing to treat ES. If you can get an appointment with one of those, you’ll be off to a better start in getting a diagnosis. Unfortunately, many of our CA members have had to come to the US for surgery because there are so few doctors in CA who do the surgery needed for ES & it’s not made a priority so wait times can be a couple of years.
Re: the sounds you hear in your ear relative to palate movement - the only thing that comes to my mind is Palatal Myoclonus, but that is caused by involuntary contractions of the palate not voluntary as in your case. Regardless, one of the nerves that innervates the palate is the trigeminal nerve which is often irritated by ES & can cause pain in the face, teeth, ears, nose, eyes & even migraine level headaches. If what’s going on in your ear relative to your palatal movement is being caused by your trigeminal nerve, it could point to ES. The vagus nerve also helps w/ palate innervation, but it’s not connected to the inner ear the way the trigeminal nerve is.
Here are the two doctors we have on our Doctors List for your province:
•Dr. Dan O’Connell, 1E4 WMC, University of Alberta Hospital
8440 112 Street, Edmonton, AB, 780-407-4598, https://headandneckclinic.ca/page.php?id=1#4uld point to ES (may no longer be doing ES surgeries)