12 symptoms ENT doctors say never to ignore

Plus: Jalen Hurts has deep vein thrombosis and blood clots in his lungs  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Mandy Oaklander | October 19, 2026     Cold and flu season might as well be called ENT season. Ear, nose, and throat doctors—formally known as otolaryngologists—specialize in the body parts that tend to suffer most when it gets cold and germy. For her new piece in TIME, my colleague Angela Haupt asked three ENTs the symptoms people should never ignore. More than one of them surprised me. Angela shares some behind-the-scenes reporting below. TODAY’S TOPICS Jalen Hurts’ DVT diagnosis How much you spend on trashed food Why your ears keep popping Yoga: the next Olympic sport?         TODAY I LEARNED Blood thinners don’t dissolve blood clots Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis and blood clots in both lungs, the NFL team announced today. He needs blood thinners—but those medications don’t actually dissolve clots, I learned. It’s a common misconception, Dr. Stephan Moll, a hematologist at the University of North Carolina, told me. Instead, blood thinners help keep existing clots from growing and prevent new ones while the body gradually breaks them down. Treatment generally lasts at least three months—and because the medications make bleeding harder to stop, getting tackled is off-limits while you’re taking them. In my piece for TIME out today, I wrote about Hurts’ new diagnosis and what to know about these serious conditions. —Angela Haupt, Editor, Health & Wellness         SPONSORED BY HUBSPOT FOR STARTUPS Build Your First GTM Agent Workflow Logging. Enrichment. Routing. It’s the GTM work that eats a startup’s week. Agents can own it so your team gets back to selling. On October 28, HubSpot and Dust run Build, Buy, or Hire? live. No panel. We build your first automated workflow in HubSpot and Dust, including a post-call automation and a Slack account ownership layer, and you take the build home. Join the Live Build         BIG NUMBER $2,913 That’s how much a U.S. household of four spends each year on food that goes uneaten, according to a report last year from the Environmental Protection Agency. I wrote a new piece for TIME about how to keep more of your grocery budget out of the trash. One of the clever strategies I discovered: shop your freezer first. —A.H.         SPONSORED BY TLDR AI Why 1.1M+ readers open this AI newsletter every day From ML engineers to founders, 1.1M+ readers use TLDR AI to spot new tools and research before they go mainstream. One free email, every morning. Subscribe for free         QUICK CHAT Why your ears won’t stop popping I recently spent nearly an hour interviewing ENT Dr. Ryan Salvador about the ear, nose, and throat symptoms people should never ignore. Near the end of our conversation, I couldn't resist sneaking in a personal question: Why do my ears sometimes feel clogged and keep popping, even when I'm not on an airplane?  Salvador, who had already switched to FaceTime to show me medical diagrams, happily pulled up another one. Here's what I learned. —A.H. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Photo-Illustration by Chloe Dowling for TIME (Source Images: PM Images/Getty Images, Plume Creative/Getty Images (2) First of all, why do our ears pop? There's a little tunnel called the Eustachian tube that connects the middle ear to the back of the nose. Its job is to help equalize pressure on either side of the eardrum. When you swallow, chew, or yawn, that tube opens and allows air to move through. Why might my ears keep popping when I'm not flying? It could be Eustachian tube dysfunction. If you have allergies, sinus infections, or other inflammation inside your nose, the tube might not open the way it should. That can create a feeling that you need to keep popping your ears. Can that actually affect your hearing? Yes. If the tube isn't working properly for days or weeks, fluid can accumulate behind the eardrum. That makes it harder for the eardrum to vibrate normally, so your hearing can become muffled. You also mentioned that your jaw might have something to do with it? Sometimes the sensation is coming from the temporomandibular joint, or TMJ, rather than the ear itself. The joint is so close to the ear that problems there can create a similar feeling of pressure or fullness. Read the full story here.         SPONSORED Is your company shaping the future? TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2027 entries are now open. Every year, TIME asks what it means for a company to be influential. Every year, the answer changes. With expanded recognition opportunities to celebrate influence across industries, impact initiatives, and, for the first time, workplace innovation, there are more ways than ever to stand out. Submit your company.          WHAT WE’RE READING Could yoga become an Olympic sport? Anita Chaudhuri at the Guardian explores the heated debate over turning an ancient practice into a competitive spectacle. Americans can finally buy sunscreen with bemotrizinol, a sun-protection ingredient that's long been used in Europe and other parts of the world, the Associated Press reports. For TIME, film critic Stephanie Zacharek reviewed You Can See Everything, the buzzy new documentary about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.       More Newsletters from Click to sign up. THE BRIEF +FUTURE PROOF +INSIDE TIME +IN THE LOOP +WORTH YOUR TIME + Subscribe to TIME Email us: healthmatters@time.com Received this from a friend? Sign up here Connect with TIME PRIVACY POLICY   © 2026 TIME USA, LLC. 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