I had these symptoms for about a year - trickle at night sometime waking me up, sometimes wake up a wet ear. Job change and a lot less stress seems to correlate with it stopping.
I have this problem in my right ear and have had an MRI and awaiting a CT to confirm if it is Cerebrospinal fluid leak. I have constantly pushed with the doctors although in fairness they have been good. I am having to pack my ear at night and change it 2 - 4 times a night. Push for scans to get to the bottom of it. My hearing is way down with it as well.
Good luck and please keep us posted.
PERMANENT CURE
I cured myself with a thyroid medicine and an elimination diet.
I had severe eczema in my ear canals. I would scratch at it and get ear infections. I thought I would eventually become deaf. I was very afraid. So I researched all of it.
I had almost no ear wax. I also had dry skin, low morning body temp, intolerance of heat/cold, very slow hair & nail growth, and other signs of low thyroid. But my thyroid blood test results showed only a bit low, but still in the normal range.
To increase ear wax production and restore normal oily skin, I took a thyroid medicine Cynoplus, which is a T4/T3 combination. I now have some ear wax and oily (not dry)skin. Before all this, I was trying all kinds of natural soaps and shampoos, body lotions, etc as the solution. Now I can use any soap or shampoo and don't need skin lotion.
I also try to have more healthy oils in my diet -- olive oil, real butter, peanut butter, etc.
Also, to fully stop eczema flare-ups, I did an elimation diet of the most common food allergens (corn, wheat, tree nuts, coffee, alcohol, gluten, etc). I found that whenever I ate the smallest amount of corn (in any form, including high fructose corn syrup [found in MANY foods and drinks], corn starch, popcorn, etc) the eczema would start within 1-2 days. This happened even after I increased my ear wax by boosting my thyroid, but the eczema was very minor -- it didn't spread to the ear canal, just at the opening and went away quickly.
I have been free of ear eczema for three months now and also feel much better overall. The Cynoplus thyroid hormone T4/T3 also cured my chronic fatigue, brain fog, frequent depression, and slow wound healing.
Research/Google elimination diet and also the symptoms of low thyroid (hypothyroidism) -- and cure yourself permanently.
If you can't afford many doctor visits or expensive U.S. medicines, or you have a doctor who is unwilling to let you try thyroid hormones, you can try another doctor -- or order online inexpensive Cynoplus from a Mexican pharmacy and start at the lowest dose. You can also order U.S. blood tests via the Internet (without a local doctor), with blood taking labs in almost every U.S. city; the test results are emailed to you.
If you can afford it, it is best to see a doctor, ask for a hard copy of blood test results, and get a prescription for U.S. medicines. Remember that even if blood tests show normal levels of thyroid hormones, but you still have many of the low thyroid symptoms, you may need to insist that your doctor let you try thyroid hormone pills -- especially if you have serious problems like eczema in you ear canal and resulting, dangerous ear infections. See if T4/T3, or T4 alone, increases ear wax production. You will know in one week if it works.
I have been having the same problem but apparently from doctors an the responses below, know one seems to know what this is. Based on what I have experienced, it seems to be related to allergies.
Clear liquid. Seems to dry out at times, but is replaced by a dry flaking scale that when removed invites a new flood of seepage. Drives me crazy. Occasionally, when in a dry crusty spell, the skin inside my ear will crack open. No bleeding, just painful. While this seems similar to others, I never have any itching, ever. I literally can soak a Q-Tip every few minutes when it is really going to town.
Drives me crazy.
http://www.pennmedicine.org/encyclopedia/em_PrintArticle.aspx?gcid=000622
Sounds like Swimmer's Ear, (see link above). Hope this helps.
To those people with "scabs", the fluid leaking is not the same issue as those of us with "wet ears". I have had this for years with no answers, until I was diagnosed with Lyme and co-infections. I think it was a very early sign that was being ignored and unfortunately laughed at by doctors. Until it became a near death situation doctors would not take any symptoms seriously. Its all stress or hormones- duh. Treating has been another problem. It's been 3-years and I finally feel like a person again. If I stop taking my lyme treatments BACK returns the wet internal ears then progressing to the more serious symptoms. It is an annoying tickle mostly in the morning when head pressure builds while laying down. My immune system kept the lyme infection under check for years until another illness stressed my system.
I find your post the most accurate due to the fact I suffer from most of the issues described here, I insisted my doc do a swab for fungus and it came back positive for candida, he prescribed antibiotic/antifungal drops with steroid but , I'm reluctant to use them, going with the probiotics and reducing my sugar intake, still waiting for it all to kick in but doing anything else is useless besides flushing with water and maybe some Canesten ointment.
Sorry Laura, but antibiotics are one of the main causes of Candida. Candida is what the person has as many have had their ears swabbed and tested and Candida came up as a fungal infection, which it's not, but can turn into one. Candida is so well known now, but the way the body gets rid of excess sugar isn't. Candida is the imbalance of good and bad bacteria in the intestines, with the bad bacteria being yeast, and the good being probiotics. When a person has too much sugar in their bodies, or yeast, as the the excess sugar turns into yeast, the body has many many symptoms of Candida. My Dr. told me this and even wrong food combinations turn into yeast and the body at some point has to expel the excess yeast or glucose, (sugar). That's why the liquid is clear and doesn't smell. It becomes very hard and sticks to the ears, and comes off in a yellowish, blond scab, but it's just yeast, or glucose from again the body having to much. Don't pick off the hardened yeast as it becomes very irritated. Most due because it itches so much.
It's just Candida, and the excess yeast has to escape from the body somehow and likes to come out of the ears. Candida is now a very commonly talked about problem, but it's easily taken care of if the person has the discipline to stop eating sugar or their are food combinations that cause yeast over population.