“Ear infection question?”

If your ear is still in pain and the nurse said everything looked fine, you need to look elsewhere for where the pain is coming from. It may be necessary to do a temporal bone CT scan to see if you have an infection behind the ear in the mastoid cavity. That's something that you can't see on an exam and should be investigated if you have pain in the ear without any appearance of any illness in the ear canal or middle ear.

You probably need to actually go see an ENT doctor to clean your ears out. If there is wax in there that is stuck, you may just make it worse by trying to flush it out or using q-tips.

Your shortest and safest route to resolving the problem is to make an appointment with an ENT doctor. The only thing Q-tips are good for is increasing business for ear doctors. It’s very likely that your infection was caused by Q-tip use. The package warns you not to insert in ears, but nobody reads it.

Never use cotton swabs on the ear (blind procedure on a narrow, potentially dangerous area). Have it cleaned professionally.

Hello,

Recommend see an ENT Specialist as needs ear cleaning with special instruments.

Dr. D

You definitely should not clean the ear yourself if Q-tips and other devices to clean ears usually make matters worse. Ideally, you should see an ear nose and throat specialist. Second choice would be a primary care physician. If you go to an urgent care, you are likely to get a provider without the appropriate experience or instruments. Your chances would be better in an emergency room, if you are uncomfortable over the holiday. If you have accessed to an emergency room affiliated with the medical school, there probably would be an ear, nose, and throat resident available if the emergency physician has trouble with your ears.

Robert T. Sataloff, M.D., D.M.A., F.A.C.S. (Dictated but not read)