Again With My Ear

My ear is going to be the death of me, I swear! This left ear drains ALL the time and now I have a blown out ear infection. I feel like gouging out my ear and ripping it off. It's not the worse pain I have ever had. No, having Maya was the worse pain ever but we won't go into that in this post. But this ear infection is becoming a 5 out of 10 (that's how we measure pain in the military). I have become used to getting ear infections in the same ear over and over for about 15 years now. And I've started to notice a pattern in the doctors' excuses to why I'm getting them. Their stories are all their own opinion and none of them match. Here are some of them:

1. you are getting water in your ear from the shower
2. you need to use a hair dryer to dry out your ears
3. there is a lot of bacteria in the water here
4. you have a rash, put some Prell shampoo in it (NEVER, NEVER do this!)
5. you have swimmer's ear and there's nothing we can do
6. put alcohol in your ear (NEVER, NEVER do this!)
7. flying causes infections

So, this time when I went in to see the doctor, he let me know they were out of ear drops. What? He gave me eye drops instead. What, What? I understand it. They work the same way. It's just antibiotic drops. But the ear drops have a numbing medication in it that the eye drops do not have. And for the pain, I get vitamin M. You may know this as Motrin. It's what the military uses for everything. Oh, you have pain, take some Motrin. Oh you had surgery, take some Motrin. Oh, your foot fell off, take some Motrin. Oh, your heart stopped beating and you're dead, take some Motrin. I've gotten so use to taking Motrin that my little body needs 800 milligrams every three hours (now, I know I'm not suppose to take that much but it's waring off too quickly).

The only good thing that happened this time is that the doctor wants to see me again in a couple of weeks and he's going to refer me to the ENT and an audiologist because I may have some hearing loss. Thank goodness (not that I may have hearing loss but that someone is finally doing their job)! No other doctor has ever said that before even when I asked. He said there's got to be an underlying reason why I'm getting infections. I made sure I got a follow-up appointment with the same doctor because that never happens either. I'll keep him to his word. I may not be able to get a clear diagnosis here but at least I'll have it in my records for after we move.