Ear covid?
Something is going around
I’m not sure how this is even possible but I have had an ear infection for 10,000 years. Much like Long Cold, Long Ear Infection (coinage possibly independently arrived at by spouse and self) is where you’re not doing great, it’s nothing serious, but it goes on forever because you’re wiped out, because you are also taking care of your child(ren) who have the same thing, and because all these things sort of compound.
In case you find yourself wondering, it turns out you can have an ear infection, take a course of antibiotics, and be technically over the infection, and not have anything more interesting going on, but still feel like you have it. I learned this today at the family doctor (a resident, as is the usual procedure at the practices that we go to), after having gone to the pharmacy yesterday and been told by a pharmacist (in the Eaton Centre, where we’d very wisely gone with two small children; in fairness the older of the two now has a very cute-yet-practical spring jacket) that what I needed wasn’t sudafed but for a doctor to once again look in my ear.
I’m now to snort some kind of nasal steroid for a week that, per the doctor, may or may not unblock my left ear, but the worst that can happen is that it does not do this. Per the nurse who took my blood pressure when I came in, this ear infection is going around. Which means what, exactly? How is an ear infection spreading?
I’m now convinced that there’s ear covid, and that this is what knocked out myself and my baby-toddler over the past week and a half. A new variant, a new lab leak, an especially infectious hare, whatever. The answer will lie in wearing N95 ear muffs whenever indoors.
Well, Mark covered in an expert way, what I was thinking: you've got that new little bundle of frequently infectious joy! The little guys haven't got fully developed immune systems yet, so they catch things you don't - but you're then around them all the time so eventually you get it too. Condolences!
So I'm gong check the manual here [cracks open 'Instagram-speak for Dummies'**] and it says I'm supposed to say that You Should Embrace Getting to Enjoy the Fullness of Experience of this here Circle of Life. Or something like.
elm
** a dialect with a vocabulary apparently derived from the self-help movement but with a grammar drawn from real estate brochurese
His Phoebe-
I am a recent subscriber to Feminine Chaos and so far I have really appreciated each episode. Thanks so much to you and Kat!
I have 35+ years experience in primary care medicine (MD) but am not an ENT doc- so take the following FWIW. As you may know, there are two kinds of bacterial infectious otitis (externa and media), and the appropriate treatment for one may be entirely ineffective for the other. Otitis media, which kids get all the time but which is less prevalent in adults, is only diagnosable by physician or Nurse Practitioner physical exam and is treated by oral antibiotics. Otitis externa (usually the ear canal will be obviously abnormal (narrowed, inflamed, etc) just by looking at it) needs to be treated by topical antibiotic plus anti-inflammatory drops rx.
In addition to these two bacterial infections, viruses that infect the throat (like SARS CoV2) could cause a fluid build up in the middle ear, Eustachian tubes, etc., which could cause pain, "fullness", etc. This would best be treated with decongestants (sudafed, etc.) and/or antihistamines, NOT antibiotics. The good news is that these ear complications of upper respiratory viral infections tend to be fairly short-lived (1-2 weeks max).
Covid is such a novel virus that it can probably infect many different anatomic sites. That said, "Covid ear" -if it exists at all- is not common, poorly understood, and not yet definitely a "thing." Before I wrote off my and my childrens' ear symptoms to "Covid Ear", I'd want to make sure that the common and typical external and internal (i.e. "media") bacterial infections had been ruled out. This is something that an experienced doctor should be able to do, but with which a resident might (resident's skills vary) have trouble - just due to lack of years on the job.