Chinese newspapers are reporting on the curious case of a 20-something year old girl who has temporarily lost hearing in her left ear after receiving a passionate kiss from her boyfriend. The doctor who treated the women offered the explaination that ”The kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear.” Cases where eardrum rupture caused by a suction force applied to the external ear canal from a kiss forming a tight seal against the ear have also been reported. These curious cases are very rare and kissing, in general, is still considered to be a low-risk enterprise when it comes to eardrum rupture.
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Tags: eardrum, ENT (Ear Nose Throat), hearing, kiss, kissing
Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.