I’d get a lot of ear infections when I was a kid. At some point tubes were put in my ears, and that was pretty much that.
A few years ago my ears were hurting pretty bad, like I remember them hurting from childhood, so I went to the doctor. Dude told me I had a sinus infection and gave me some antibiotics. I had never been diagnosed with a sinus infection before, so it was kind of cool that I was broken in a new way. I kept getting earaches every so often, would go back to see Dr. Soandso, get some antibiotics, and call it a day.
Back in November, my ears hurt. I went to the doctor. Same thing in December. Again in January, and then in February. I was freaking out a bit, thinking I was either getting new infections every month (scary) or it was the same unkillable superinfection (scarier). Dude gave me a referral to see my new best pal: The Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist*.
I went to see him. He chatted me up for a bit, squirted me with some stuff, and shoved things in my face. A typical first date. Anyway, dude tells me I have a deviated septum (which can be fixed with surgery) and that he wants me to get a CT Scan.
Yesterday, I went and got my CT Scan. I was worrying they’d find a tumor or a bore-worm or something, but nothing much came of it. I got to see the inside of my head, which was pretty awesome, but dude didn’t see anything that looked like Nose Disease, Face Cancer, or bore-worms (disappointing). Now, my left ear has been hurting like a motherfucker, but I waited to go to the doctor since I knew I had this appointment. He looked in my ear (which had me wincing and trying not to cry like a toddler) but didn’t see anything there either. I got sprayed with more nose-clearing-and-numbing spray (which tastes sooooooo nasty, btw) and examined a bit more. THEN he thought maybe we should look in my nose with a telescope.
I had to wait a bit while he caught up on his other appointments, since this was like a bonus round. We went into the room with the torture device. I got sprayed with more crap, and then a camera cable thing was shoved up my nose. It might surprise you to learn that this was slightly uncomfortable. It wasn’t so bad at first, but when dude was wiggling the thing around in the deepest depths of my face, I pretty much didn’t like it. We didn’t see anything sketchy or skeevy on the inside of my face either.
Long story short, we can’t figure out what is wrong with me. It appears all the “sinus infections” have been misdiagnosed, and something else is going on that isn’t an infection, but we can’t figure out what. In a last ditch effort, he sprayed some new crap into my throat to see if numbing the throat stopped my ears from hurting. It did not, but I did get to taste the nastiest taste I’ve ever tasted, so mad props for that. I’m now to keep a symptom-diary, and see him in another month. I can’t wait.
*At one point, we’re talking about Netti Pots. I have one, and have been using it as directed by the regular-doctor. However, specialist guy wants me to use a different kind of sinus irrigation thing. It’s like a big syringe, and you squirt the saline solution up your nose with it. Dude is pretty serious about it, so serious that he shows me a little video on how to use it…
So we’re sitting there, and I’m watching it, and he’s watching me watch it. The video starts with a CGI animation (really?) of filling a container with water, adding the saline mixture to it, and then filling the syringe with it. THEN we get to a real-person/spokesmodel/whatever-lady using the thing. I’m watching this guy watch me watch a video of a woman squirting shit up one side of her nose while it streams out the other, and the situation was so absurd that I burst out laughing. I think he was offended.
