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So my ear started bleeding.  My left ear if you want to know.  Bright red blood, not gushing or anything.  Took a few hours to stop.  Happened the day of my wisdom tooth surgery.  Oral surgeon was very surprised by that.  There is no connection between the surgery and my ear.  Anyway, the bleeding stopped and there wasn’t any pain in my ear.  Fast forward to Friday.  I have a dark red and brown, smelly discharge from my ear.  Only in the morning.  Still no pain.  Time to go see the doc.

Got an appointment on Tuesday for the family practitioner and he takes a look and can’t see anything because of the large mass of ear wax and whatever in my ear.  He gets whatever little scoopula he was using and some magnifing specs and starts to delicately clean out my ear canal.  He says the minute he touched the mass, it started bleeding.  It also began to cause me immense pain.  He immediately referred me to the ENT which happened to be Dr. Simon who did Sarah’s surgery a while back (adenoids and tonsils).  Dr. Simon happened to be free that afternoon and agreed to see me.  He also has a more specialized device for sucking the crap out a person’s ear canal.  I had my right ear cleaned out while I was there.  Anyway, Dr. Simon began the process of cleaning out my ear and while I don’t know what all he took out, it wasn’t pretty that’s for sure.  It was also very, very painful.

The verdict, I definitely have an ear infection.  I have some ear drops to use for the next two weeks.  I’ll go back to Dr. Simon for a check up.  Hopefully, he will be able to look into my ear and see what is going on.  Preliminary diagnosis however is Cholesteatoma.

“A cholesteatoma is a benign growth of skin in an abnormal location such as the middle ear… A cholesteatoma can form in the middle ear…  … [the] most common involves an improperly functioning eustachian tube. The eustachian tube is a canal which connects the middle ear to the back of the nose. It is responsible for equilibrating middle ear pressure to the pressure in the external environment. This tube is normally collapsed in its resting state and when we swallow or yawn, the muscles around the tube contract and cause the tube to open allowing the influx of air into the middle ear space. When this tube does not work appropriately, a relative negative middle ear pressure is generated and maintained. Over time the intact eardrum begins to retract back toward the inner ear. Eventually a skin-lined sac forms which continues to grow and cause infection and bony destruction.”

So in two weeks, I’ll find out more about what is going on in my ear.  Simple infection that needs to be treated or more serious condition that may require surgery.

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