We are told to listen to our physician because physicians usually know best what is right for us… But what do you do when your gut tells you that your physician is wrong?

Sometimes, you must listen to your gut feelings and go against medical advice.

This is what I did six months ago.

For many years, I have had bilateral ear pain during plane travel, especially on descent. In the last few years, as I needed to travel more and more for work, the pain has increased to the point that I only fly when travel is really important. The rest of the time, I favor long car trips to avoid flying.

The long car trips worked until my husband and I went to Mount Baldy in California for a hike. On our way back home, as we were driving down 7,800 feet from the ski resort area, my left ear started aching. By the time we were back home, I had intense left ear pain and was still not able to equalize after one hour of being back home.

I was stunned. Not only was I having ear problems in planes during descents, but I was starting to have problems in cars when driving down from a high altitude!

Enough was enough. I had heard about a new surgical procedure called eustachian tube balloon dilation, which had only been done in the last eight years. I looked for ear, nose, and throat specialists in Los Angeles who were performing that procedure and made an appointment with one of them.

My gut feeling was telling me that I had a problem with my eustachian tubes, the little canals going from the back of the nose to the middle ear, conduits that allow people to equalize pressure when there is any change of altitude, whether it is flying or diving.

The same gut feeling told me that eustachian tube balloon dilation was the right surgery for me because it was very simple and not aggressive: The surgeon puts a........

© Psychology Today