I HATE this Doctor! Caution: vent inside!

I am an RN who was a telephonic nurse and earache was a common type of call that we got and I also suffered a lot of earaches in my younger days. I understand your anger at this doctor for not prescribing something stronger than OTC pain meds for your earache. However, I would like to challenge you to do some research about your problem of ear pain and or do some problem solving here.

Infections cause the body to put the inflammatory response into action. For the pathophysiology of this, see http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-student/histamine-effect-244836.html. The symptoms that the inflammatory response is occurring in order of their appearance are redness, heat, swelling and pain. I thought it admirable that you described your own symptoms as "Eventually I get swelling on my face by my ear and decide that the pain is TOO MUCH". The swelling which is a result of the histamine response (you have a whopper of an infection that your body is trying to fight off!) is pushing against nearby pain receptors which is what is actually setting off your pain. Those "ear drops" that the doctor prescribed for you I am guessing were an antibiotic. Their purpose is to do something about the infecting microbe. As they annihilate the bacteria, the inflammatory response that has been going on will abate, histamine will stop being secreted, swelling will go down, pressure will let off the pain receptors in the area around your ear, jaw and face and the pain will improve.


Now, some things that you can do for this earache are:

• http://www.emedicinehealth.com/swimm...article_em.htm - Otitis Externa
  • http://www.emedicinehealth.com/swimm...r/page6_em.htm - home care

From personal experience I can report that a heating pad held against the side of my head really helped.

P.S. I never had a doctor prescribe narcotics for my ear infections either.