What is best for the ear?

What do you keep on hand?

I believe I have a pimple or spider bite in the very upper most corner under the bend/ridge of my ear and it's not visible by me... and the wife says it's a bump but no "puss" thingy like a pimple has...

My ear is swolen, bright red, hot, and the pain is on the very most outside of my ear, and radiates through it... and it's gotten a bit worse where I can feel it on my jaw if I poke it.. basically it's swolen

Apparently this is pretty common, and the pain is just radiating and I can deal with that but if you touch it our bump it I feel like I`m gonna die, haha then it goes away in a minute or so.

I'd love to numb it.. what does everyone store / suggest??? Tonight for me it's jack and coke.

-Todd

FYI - It was not ready to be popped if it is a pimple... haha, my ear is now throbbing intensely, and it's visibly swollen from the back of my head. I think the wife enjoyed it all too much haha.

One thing you might want to do is have someone examine the area millimeter by millimeter looking for foreign objects, a tick, or infected chigger sore. Sometimes a tick can dig in and the body will swell up around it.

Once you examine the area closely and found nothing i would go with hot moist compresses for an hour or three to see if it will localize and, perhaps, come to a head. You use a dish towel with water as hot as you can stand without doing any damage. You may find that the heat deadens the pain and, for future reference, moist heat also works on itching. If it comes to a head you keep up the compresses until it is easily lanced. Then you clean it out and bandage.

If it doesn't seem the sort of thing that is forming a head or localizing, or if the hot compresses make it feel much worse, you should try cold compresses and see if that helps.

If anywhere along the line the tissue looks to be breaking down, as in an infection or bit that is eating the tissue, your better off getting medical help. If the tissue is breaking down and the affected area is deep, or spreading rapidly heading down to the ER is your best shot. You need to be extra careful with any issue on the head, neck or near the spine.

Also small puncture wounds into fingertips the tip of a toe can be dangerous and lead to a bone infection. A bone infection in a fingertip usually means the finger is amputated. And if your lucky that is the end of it. When in doubt get medical help.

I once had a cactus thorn bury itself deep in my leg. For about a week I was unaware I had a thorn in me. then it started to act up. It would itch and sting a bit and then get better. Then several weeks later the spot blew up, got very tender, and hurt so bad I couldn't sleep. I used a hot compress and it looked to be forming ahead. Over two days I kept up with the compresses until the lump was right at the surface. Lancing it was a relief. Along with a ball of puss and crap came a half-inch long tip of a cactus thorn. Once it was out and the hole cleaned out it healed quickly.

Thanks for the advice Art!

Today it was a little more swollen and I've decided to take IBPROFEN (400mg) 3 or 4 times a day. It makes the pain go away, and relieves the swelling somewhat.

I once had a pain like you had except it was in my eye, it felt like I had dirt in it and the itching would never go away.. You couldn't see anything in there, well after one day passed it got worse and I went to my Eye Doc... turns out from grinding metal I got a sliver stabbed directly in my eye. Froze my eye, grabbed some needle tweezer things, all the med students in the building, and pulled it out! Then I got to be a pirate for a day or so...

I`m thinking it's a pimple nothing else looks abnormal... now if it would just go away already Haha.

If you are taking that much, keep an eye on your ankles. Ibuprofin in large quantities can be hell on your kidneys. I did this also, and my ankles swelled up horribly. I haven't touched the stuff since, now I stick to aspirin.

1600mg a day is actually not that much. I have prescription for it for 800mg 4 or 5 times a day I believe too... but I agree, it's bad for your kidneys and your stomach!

Today it's gone down, and I only took half a 400 once today and it's almost back to normal... I would get pressure where it hurt and then it would go away, so I think it may have been a spider bite or pimple still... although no signs of a normal pimple or spider bite for that matter! Maybe a foreign object and my body was expelling it, either way my ear is getting better and I didn't need no doctor or antibiotics they would have likely put me on.

while the fact that Ibuprofen is helping is reassuring, I heard about this in the derm clinic today:

chondrodermatitis nodularis helicis

While it in itself is benign, the differential includes basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma. It may prudent to swing by a dermatologist. Just food for thought.

Not that by the way it looks and affects you.

Thanks though! It's hard to find "outside ear problems" on the web it seems without knowing their technical name. Most "ear" problems are inside it seems when you google it. haha.

True, but 1600mg/day is not that large of a dose. Standard dosing is 200-400mg every 4 hours, 600mg every 6 hours, or 800mg every 8 hours. Dosing like this in the short term (over a few days) is usually OK for normal, healthy, no-kidney-disease, non-geriatric patients that aren't taking other meds that may have interactions. Ask your doc to be certain, if you have any other medical conditions, or just aren't sure.

Disclaimer: This information is offered for entertainment purposes only.

Well as I have come to the other side of the Advil overdose, my wrecked kindeys can attest to what too much too often can do to you.

When i was grunt, it was common for most all of us to take 25-30 Advil or Tylenol per day, day after day, in the field. We all knew it was overdose but when you hump 75+ pound rucks hour after hour, up and down terrain, you need some pain relief.

I can't even take Ibu anymore. I have to stick to Tylenol, which just was released it harms the liver as badly as Advil hits the kidneys

YIKES!

Sorry to here that.

HMMMmmmm.

I had one of these around this last Christmas...

Started small like a spider bite on my belt line. Does anyone remember what it was?

MRSA and it really was nasty before it was gone.

MRSA is bad and getting worse it seems. A buddy of mine has it and can't get a necessary shoulder surgery until its cleared and it doesn't want to go away.

I think we can blame the over prescribing of antibiotics on that and other related issues getting "worse"...

My doctor has told me that for strep throat antibiotics don't make it heal but maybe a day or two before if you just let your "body" handle it. Of coarse if it doesn't handle it properly you can get pneumonia so that's their fear... better handle it prevent something a little worse and then however many years later and people can barely fight strep themselves.

Unfortunately, your body may appear to have handled it, but years later you can run into complications.

From http://www.mayoclinic.com :

I don't see anyplace where it says "years later"... it says if left untreated it can sometimes cause complications. It doesn't say if untreated yet "got better" in the years it may cause more serious problems.

Did I miss that part?

Actually, I think that poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis strikes on the order of months later.

BTW, most "strep" infections are viral. That's the concern with giving antiobiotics too early. That, and really pushy demanding parents.

So there was a hole in my ear after it cleared up / swelling went down... but it's covered in "white soft scab" now.. and appears to be healing. Let's hope

Thanks for all the advice and info guys and gals.

I know that from previous education. It doesn't state that in the MayoClinic quote I posted.

My kids MD actually has 2 strep test kits in the office - one responds in like 2 minutes, but only checks for some types, then he has one that takes 12-24 hours. He doesn't prescribe unless you fail one of them

Yay! I love it when I hear of good prescribing practices.

I'm sure I've offended several on this forum, but using antibiotics without being under competent medical care is IMHO usually a bad idea.

If you are on an actual expedition, especially in 3rd world conditions, then having a course of broad spectrum antibiotics is prudent, but usually there will be some type of medical guy on the team.

I know Doug has an antibiotic kit in his FAK's, but unless you are travelling outside civilization for 2+ weeks at a time, it's really first aid that the patient needs until transport to more comprehensive care can be achieved.

As an ID friend of mine explained, when you use antibiotics, you lose them. Any antibiotic use will by its very nature select for the resistant organisms and skew the strains into resistance. So use them judiciously!

Just my 0.02.