"I'm not cold!!"

It's an affliction known as Swimmer's Ear. It's been around since I was a kid and on the local swim team.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/swimmers-ear/DS00473


Had both my tonsils and adnoids removed at the same time when I was about Sozlet's age too. I was constantly getting colds, ear and throat infections to the point that they finally removed my tonsils on an emergency basis after I missed nearly a year of school from being sick so much.

Ah, that makes a difference. Definitely not swimmer's ear then.

This is just noting (this thread has been so so useful in putting stuff together):

Yesterday she had a playdate at a friend's house after school. I picked her up at 5:00, she was still playing, I didn't notice anything amiss at all, chatted with the mom while the kids got a bit of extra playing in. Then on the way out to the car she had a bad expression and I asked what was wrong, and she said her ear hurt... a lot. (Left ear.) She said it had hurt for about five minutes earlier in the playdate, then went away, and then had just started hurting again.

She looked horrible, it was obviously a lot of pain and she was limp and exhausted-looking.

Got her home, sat her up to talk to her a bit, she was really wet-noodly and just wanted to go to sleep. Asked her to lay down to see how that affected the pain (when it's an ear infection it usually gets worse once she lays down). It got worse.

Got Feverall into her (for pain relief, not fever, as she didn't have a fever -- didn't feel like it and when I took her temp to be sure it was only 99), gave her the book she's been reading ("A Wrinkle In Time," thankfully very absorbing and got her mind off of things). She stabilized within 20 minutes or so, started acting pretty much normal again.

I was sure that it was an ear infection and that we needed antibiotics right away to try to stave off an eardrum perforation. Complicated stuff involving emailing E.G. and asking him to call various urgent care centers to find out which was least busy followed. (Again, tons of sick kids right now. The main one we go to was packed.)

Wanted to get her some food before we left. Nothing sounded good to her but cheese pizza from a specific place. Fine, ordered it. She ate happily enough, and half an apple as well.

More boring but time-consuming stuff happened, then we finally headed off for urgent care. Went relatively smoothly as these things go. Doc confirmed that she had a severe ear infection in the left ear, and said the eardrum was "bulging." Got a Rx for amoxicillin (capsules), as well as painkiller with codeine, went and filled it, came home.

She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed throughout all of this.

Gave her antibiotic with food, re-dosed her with Feverall (the codeine stuff made me nervous and the Feverall seemed to be doing the trick), went to bed (very late). Things were fine until 5 AM... she woke up and couldn't quite get back to sleep, and by 6:30 AM or so, she barfed. Hard to know if it was the antibiotic or just that she was uncomfortable and therefore tired, and the tiredness itself caused nausea. That happens with her.

Spent a lot of time trying to get her back to sleep, to no avail. At maybe 8 AM she finally fell back asleep, and is still sleeping now (knock on wood). As of last time I checked on her, the eardrum hadn't perforated.

sozobe :

sorry to hear that the sozlet's ear-infection has flared up again .
i assume from your post that it is a bacterial infection .

so here is an old personal story :
in the summers we used to swim regularly in lake ontario and the back lakes - sometimes several times a week .
ear aches would sometimes bother us but go away quickly - we never associated it with swimminng in the lake .
about 30+ plus years ago mrs h got a very severe and painful ear-infection and was seen by an ENT specialist from our teaching hospital .
his precription : VOSOL !
he told her to put a cotton wick soaked in vosol into the infected ear and continue the procedure for several days : within a few days the infection and pain was gone . he recommended that we use vosol as a preventive measure whenever we'd go swimming or would feel an ear ache coming on - and we've continued that practice .

in canada a similar preparation is called BURO-SOL and we alwys keep a bottle in the medicine cabinet . after swimming in the pool it is sometimes needed !

last fall i was referred to the ENT clinic for hearing test etc .
after all the tests were completed i finally saw the physician . he asked me if i suffer from arthritis . "yes , knees and hips are beginning to give me a bit of a problem " , i told him .
"well , you also have arthritis in your ears ! " , he told me . "hearing aid won't do you any good . it'll just increase the noise level but won't help you hear better . tell people to look at you when they are speaking to you " , he pronounced .
i thanked him for saving me several thousands of dollars that i was prepared to spend on a hearing aid .


(our own physician was quite surprised about the diagnosis . it was a new one for him . )

i asked him about the use of burosol and he recommended that we "use it as required" .
an old dutch friend of ours uses a 50:50 solution of pure vinegar and rubbing alcohol - cheaper and works just as well .
as i understand it , bacteria cannot live in any kind of vinegar .

i'm certainly not posting to give medical advice , but since the sozlet is suffering from ear aches on occasion , just wanted to mention our own experiences .

sure hope the sozlet ( and her mom !) will feel better soon !
take care !
hbg

(i may have posted mrs h's experience before - in that case : apologies for the repeat !)

ps. a few days ago we met a retired neighbour of ours . he is a medical doctor and retired assistant coroner .
after exchanging greetings and "how -are-you ?" , he pointed at his ears and explained that he too had arthritis in his ears !

soz :

i thought you might be interested what the MAYO CLINIC has to say about "swimmer's ear " - which is not only caused by swimming .

btw the ENT doc advised against earplugs when swimming - i always thought they offered good protction - but they can trap the water in the ear .

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/swimmers-ear/DS00473

from the mayo clinic :

Hi hamburger!

Good to know.

This is another middle ear infection though. She's never had an outer ear infection (swimmer's ear). At various times people have thought she did, so that gets confusing when it's mentioned, but it has been middle ear infections and only middle ear infections throughout.

So far so good, knock on wood. Haven't needed to give her any pain medication today. Her appetite has been OK if not hearty. She's had a fair amount to eat and drink and two more doses of amoxicillin (antibiotic), for a total of three so far. Not out of the woods yet but that's encouraging in terms of hoping to fight the infection without having an eardrum perforation this time.

from wiki :



it's used in many languages . here in german : "auf holz klopfen !!! " .
yes , i'll knock on wood too !
all the best to you and the sozlet !
hbg

danny kaye even made a movie about it - always something new to learn !

Right eardrum perforated last night. Sigh.

To recap: her left ear hurt on Tuesday. (Right one was fine.) Went to urgent care Tuesday night to get antibiotics and try to stave off perforation. Received prescription, started her on antibiotics Tuesday night. Left ear improved. Yay.

Then yesterday, she said her right ear hurt, too. Two days after she started the antibiotics, note. And then the perforation last night.

This has happened before, that she's developed a severe ear infection while she's on antibiotics. (The doctor looked at her right ear on Tuesday and said it was fine.) I don't get that and I don't like it. But oh well.

Will be calling my main ENT as soon as his office opens and figuring out where to go from here. (The perforation is as usual not a huge deal itself -- she now has no pain in that ear and is hearing better. But I want advice about what to do re: school, whether she should go in to have it checked out, etc.)

Left out something -- she barfed Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning (17th/18th), then went back to sleep. Woke up for the day Wednesday, eventually blew her nose, and unspeakable horror ensued. [If you're squeamish, stop reading until next paragraph.] Evidently she'd vomited through her nose and the, er, chunks had stayed there for several hours. The resultant mess was green -- actually green -- and generally disgusting.

So, while she hadn't been especially stuffy beforehand, she was very stuffy from then on. I want to get that in in terms of where the right ear infection may have come from.

Anyway. Follow-up ENT appt. today. This is what I just sent my husband:



I was expecting something like this and am not necessarily advocating for one position or another at this point. I just want to have a more in-depth discussion with him before making the decision, and that wasn't possible without an interpreter. (Sozlet had to fingerspell some words I missed -- I was stuck on "concerned" for a long time -- which was sweet of her but so not her job.)

Main thing I want to know is the reasoning. If it's the perforations in and of themselves -- that we can't seem to stop that from happening at intervals and each one ups the possibility of permanent damage -- I get that. We gotta do what we gotta do. If it's something more general about frequency of ear infections + age, I'm not sure. She missed 1.5 days of school and functions very, very well. (He seemed to be saying something like the latter but again, w/o an interpreter, I couldn't quite tell.) (He has a strong accent and is harder to understand than most.)

Anyway, I'm just gonna research, then go to the appt. and see what he has to say and go from there. I'm not unilaterally opposed.

The versatile invalid (nods to Noddy) has another trick up her sleeve. Sleep apnea.

The last several (~5?) days when I've woken her up for the day she's been doing this weird breathing that I didn't like but which seems within the range of snoring, and she and I are both congested from what are probably seasonal allergies. (What we call "dry stuffy," with swelling rather than mucus being the main problem.) Yesterday morning before I woke her up I had E.G. check her out to see what he thought and also to see what she sounded like. He reported but wasn't clear about something/ I didn't understand him correctly -- it wasn't until he reiterated last night that I realized he was saying that he saw her breathing become progressively more shallow until it stopped, then suddenly resumed with a big intake of breath.

This freaked me out. I had been reading about sleep apnea anyway because I've been researching adenoids and sleep apnea is a frequent symptom. (NOT one that, as far as I know, she's had thus far but I'll come back to that.) What I read was reassuring in terms of it being freaky and not good for you long-term, but also not as bad as it looks, since backup systems kick in if not enough oxygen is getting through. She breathes fine when she is awake, no issues at all, played a soccer game on Sunday and did great.

Our bedroom is fairly far from hers and E.G. can't usually hear what's going on. He listened in after we put her to bed and what he heard was not good. He said it sounded like she was breathing through a straw, a sort of whistling, when she inhaled. Exhalations were fine. Then other varieties of weird stuff, including but not limited to "cartoon snoring." (That was one of the more reassuring ones, breathing was regular.)

E.G. and I kept trying to reassure each other but what I kept coming back to -- and he agreed with -- was that we were basing our reassurances on some incidental reading about sleep apnea, which seemed to fit but the stakes seemed too high. We're not doctors, we don't know what other things might fit these symptoms. He agreed, and called the doctor.

The doc agreed that it was sleep apnea. He knew we had an appt. to discuss tubes and adenoidectomy and said something about this "speeding our decision." He also talked about having her tonsils out. (Large adenoids = blocked nose, large tonsils = blocked throat, both = not good.) He said several times that she won't stop breathing (the whole backup system thing) and that it's unpleasant but ultimately not that big of a deal. And that tonsillectomy/ adenoidectomy would fix it. But that we didn't have to do it immediately or anything.

Now, some of the things I'm trying to figure out.

Whatever this is, it seems new to me. We looked in her throat last night and the tonsils seemed bigger than usual. We don't have anything to compare to per se but it didn't seem "right."

She has been especially sleepy lately, even with what seems like "enough" sleep -- that is, she gets 10 hours, which usually is plenty, but acts like she gets far less sleep. That's unusual. (Most of the time she is fine with a total amount of sleep that is on the low end of the range recommended for her age.) Yesterday she took a nap after she got home from school, which she hasn't done since she was, like, 2.

One thing I'm certain of is that the bad gaspy breathing I noticed in the morning is new. I don't think she's ever had that before, E.G. thought she might have done that sometimes when she was sick, when she was much littler. At any rate, it's not an everyday occurrence.

I'm wondering if perhaps she's had an enlarged adenoid throughout which has contributed to various problems, and right now she has some sort of issue with her tonsils, like tonsillitis, on top of that.

I also wondered if it might be an allergy sort of reaction. (She breathes fine when she's awake, though.) Just in terms of the swelling.

I'm just kind of downloading right now, noting details when they're fresh, and not sure what my next step will be. The doctor last night didn't seem to think anything was necessary right away. My appt. with the ENT is at the end of the month.

I think I'll contact the ENT and go from there.

Well, dang it!!!

I hope the decision makes itself quickly (that is, you feel clear and right with it very soon, either way).

Dang it indeed.

Thanks. I'm feeling muddled about it all as of now, but just sent off an email to the ENT, will go from there. (Most immediate decision -- what to do if he doesn't reply by bedtime tonight. Off to research sleep apnea I guess.)

Or you could SLEEP, and wait to hear?

Ugh. How unnerving! This one is hard for me to comment on, because I know nothing about sleep apnea. But I'll keep my fingers crossed, and hope the ENT appointment brings clarity.

I'm fine actually... got some sleep overnight (almost noon here now). Kid was definitely tired this AM but I sent her off to school. Will give her an opportunity to nap after school, and then get to bed early. Hope to have more info before bedtime tho if possible... the doc last night was definitely "yeah, don't worry about it" rather than "get her to the ER" or even "bring her to the doctor first thing in the AM." He seemed to be saying that this should just be an element in our decision-making for the appt. with the ENT at the end of the month, then chopping out the adenoids + tonsils would fix it (sigh).

Oh hi Thomas... yeah, unnerving is a good word for it. Bleh.

When I was a kid, I constantly had ear and throat infections and lots of colds. Each year it got progressively worse. The decision was made to remove my tonsils and adenoids and we were waiting for a window of wellness in which to do the surgery. The doctor finally did an emergency removal of my tonsils and adenoids, even though I had yet another bad cold, because I was losing so much weight from constantly being sick.

I very rarely had colds, ear or throat infections during my school years again.

You don't miss them at all. Removing them will help the Sozlet stay well.

You might try putting a humidifyer in her room and see if that makes a difference. The dry stuffies are a clue that her mucous tissues are too dry.

During the last few days, ABQ has had some significant high winds with lots of pollen in the air and similar dry stuffies. I've had to resort to closing myself off in a bathroom full of steam before going to bed so I can breathe during the night.

There's a saline product I started using that helps too. It's called Ayr Nasal Gel.

I have no advice, just sympathy! Poor sozlet, I hope she feels better!

By the way, you live in an old house, have you checked if the culprit could be
hidden in rotten wood or other contaminants in the house?

Good to know, thanks.

I'm really wondering whether something is going on with her tonsils now that we can address without cutting 'em out. She had an ear infection/ sinus infection recently and tonsillitis would seem to make sense as a progression. She's far from "constantly" sick, has missed something like three days of school this year due to illness -- none at all before Christmas break -- and has been generally healthier each year.

Yep, we have a humidifier and I think it's helped a lot this year in general. We call it "dry stuffy" but just to differentiate it from "wet stuffy" which means lots of snot -- she's not actually dry. It really just means swelling vs. mucus.

CJane, we had the house tested before we moved in and all was fine. E.G. has a major mold allergy and so is kind of a canary for that sort of thing, no problems there.

Thanks for the sympathy tho! Mostly just writing stuff down as usual, I've found this record to be really useful when facing decisions like the one we are now (surgery for tubes, adenoids and maybe tonsils, or not).