Lung Diseases—Ear Disorders

Your ear has three main parts: outer, middle and inner. You use all of them in hearing. Sound waves come in through your outer ear. They reach your middle ear, where they make your eardrum vibrate. The vibrations are transmitted through three tiny bones, called ossicles, in your middle ear. The vibrations travel to your inner ear, a snail-shaped organ. The inner ear makes the nerve impulses that are sent to the brain. Your brain recognizes them as sounds. The inner ear also controls balance.

A variety of conditions may affect your hearing or balance:

• Ear infections are the most common illness in infants and young children.
• Tinnitus, a roaring in your ears, can be the result of loud noises, medicines or a variety of other causes.
• Meniere’s disease may be the result of fluid problems in your inner ear; its symptoms include tinnitus and dizziness.
• Ear barotrauma is an injury to your ear because of changes in barometric (air) or water pressure.

Some ear disorders can result in hearing disorders and deafness.

• Aural polyps (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Benign ear cyst or tumor (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Ear discharge (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Ear emergencies (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Ear examination (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Earache (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Eardrum repair (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Otosclerosis (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Ruptured eardrum (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Tympanometry (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Wax blockage (Medical Encyclopedia)

When you breathe, your lungs take in oxygen from the air and deliver it to the bloodstream. The cells in your body need oxygen to work and grow. During a normal day, you breathe nearly 25,000 times. People with lung disease have difficulty breathing. Millions of people in the U.S. have lung disease. If all types of lung disease are lumped together, it is the number three killer in the United States.

The term lung disease refers to many disorders affecting the lungs, such as asthma, COPD, infections like influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis, lung cancer, and many other breathing problems. Some lung diseases can lead to respiratory failure.

Dept. of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health

• Alveolar abnormalities (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Blood gases (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Breath sounds (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Chemical pneumonitis (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Chest tube insertion (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Coughing up blood (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Lung disease (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Lung PET scan (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Pulmonary edema (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Pulmonary function tests (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Solitary pulmonary nodule (Medical Encyclopedia)