You may remember me talking about "the worst ear infection I've ever had." Well, it's still around. After steady improvement earlier this week, it started hurting again on Thursday. I woke up in a lot of pain this morning, and went to Urgent Care for the third time in two weeks. They've decided that I have otitis externa (an outer ear infection). Some people refer to it as swimmer's ear (unfortunately, the only swimming I've been doing lately has been in The Sea of Financial Obligation).
This is the most inconvenient illness I've had for quite some time (knock on wood). Three trips to a doctor, a day and a half worth of the precious little personal/vacation time I get wasted, my hearing is not up to where it should be, over $50 spent on meds. Not to mention that heaven only knows what my insurance won't cover, seeing as there is NOTHING in my town covered by my insurance - I'm anticipating getting socked with out-of-pocket expenses in the hundreds of dollars.
Not what I need at a time where we've finally settled on some semblance of a budget.
I just want this to go away.
And the worst part of all? I probably did this to myself. Case in point:
Otitis externa most often occurs when too much water gets in the ear such as after swimming or showering. It's easier for germs and fungus to grow when water removes the protective ear wax. Cleaning your ears can have the same effect.
I usually don't dry my ears very well after showering, and I'm obsessive about cotton swabs.
An infection can also develop in the ear canal if you injure the skin there by putting your finger or some other object in your ear.
The skin in my ear can get very dry sometimes, to the point of flaking (I call it "ear dandruff"), and I pick at it. I pick at it a LOT. Probably to the point of breaking the skin. And I probably go a little further with the cotton swab than I should.
Maybe once I get the Urgent Care bills I'll remember that I'm in more debt due to my picking and stop picking so much.
Posted by beenie at January 16, 2005 07:21 PM