What does this mean?
The middle ear is a small air space behind the eardrum. The pressure in it is balanced with the outside by the Eustachian tube, which joins the back of the nose to the ear; the tube opens briefly when you swallow and when you yawn. If the tube does not open enough, the pressure in the space drops, the eardrum is drawn inwards and the ear feels full or blocked.
Your jaw joint sits just in front of the ear canal, a few millimetres away. Because of that closeness, problems coming from the joint and from the muscles around it can be felt as fullness in the ear. The telling detail is what changes the feeling: if swallowing, yawning or equalising the pressure opens it up for a while, the tube side comes forward; if chewing, opening wide and clenching your teeth make it clearly worse, the jaw joint side does.
Where the ear examination and the hearing test are found to be normal and the fullness carries on, the jaw joint, the chewing muscles and causes at the back of the nose come next in line. In this picture earache, discharge and hearing loss are not expected; what is described is more a matter of pressure, blockage and hearing your own voice inside your ear. Hearing loss in one ear that gets worse over days is a different road altogether, and that one will not wait.
With a feeling of fullness two separate paths are followed: the tube at the back of the nose not opening enough, and the state of the joint just in front of the ear. The headings below cover both paths together.
Likely causes
What helps at home?
- Do not try to clear your ear with a cotton bud or anything else; most of the time the source of the fullness is behind the eardrum and has nothing to do with cleaning the canal.
- Do not try to open your ear by pinching your nose and blowing hard; that can carry unwanted pressure and germs into the middle ear.
- For a few days, cut down on chewing gum, on hard and large mouthfuls and on opening wide, then see whether the fullness changes; that observation gives the examination a direction.
- Do not carry on with nasal sprays for weeks on your own decision; if the source of the fullness lies outside the ear, the benefit stays limited.
- If your hearing in one ear has dropped noticeably over a few days
- If dizziness or unsteadiness has been added to the fullness
- If there is discharge or bleeding from the ear, or you have a fever
- If the earache is getting worse and the area behind the ear has gone red and swollen
- If the fullness has been in the same ear for weeks and is not improving at all
Frequently asked questions
- My ear examination was clear, so why does the fullness carry on?
- When the eardrum and the hearing test are found to be normal, the source is most often not behind the drum but around it. At this stage the Eustachian tube not opening enough, blockage at the back of the nose, the chewing muscles and the jaw joint are assessed. Finding nothing in the ear does not mean your symptom is not real.
- Can clenching my teeth make my ear feel blocked?
- It can. The jaw joint sits just in front of the ear canal, and the chewing muscles are its neighbours. In people who clench during the day or grind at night, the fullness can change noticeably with chewing and with opening wide. Whether that link holds in your case is shown by examination; not every blocked-feeling ear has to do with the jaw.
- It gets worse on a plane and in a lift; what does that mean?
- Fullness that rises with a change in pressure and opens partly when you swallow suggests the Eustachian tube is not opening as it should. In that case the assessment is carried out by an ENT specialist. Fullness coming from the jaw joint changes more with chewing, with yawning and with a clenching habit through the day.
This content is for general information and does not replace an in-person examination. Symptoms overlap between conditions, and a diagnosis can only be made clinically.