Today, I would like to share a personal experience of mine, which I started going through a couple of weeks back and finally (hopefully, thankfully) ended yesterday. Something I feel that everyone should be aware of.
Around 2 weeks ago: I started having pain inside (deep inside) my left ear while waking up from sleep. I thought it could be because of using too much headphones and such. As days went by the pain increased...
Last Thursday: and I officially woke up with my left ear completely blocked. I could not hear a single sound or noise through the left ear alone. I went to the GP hub and due to covid-19, they could not check my ear face-to-face so they assumed it was ‘swimmer’s ear’ (with all the symptoms I mentioned) and maybe an ear infection due to built-up wax and prescribed me Optimize ear drops to use up to 3 times a day for 5 days. I was very keen on getting rid of the pain and was using the ear drops 3 times a day every day.
4 days went by: During the 4 days, I developed a severe headache on the left side (it almost felt like someone was poking the inside of my left head with a needle), left eye pain, could not eat anything with the left side of my mouth (my mouth gave out a metallic taste) and could swallow nothing with my left side throat. Due to all these pains, I only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep every night. The pain was really unbearable.
Sunday night: I had 0hrs of sleep. I mean 0!
Monday morning: Despite still having an extra day to use my drops, I decided to go to the Mayday Hospital A&E. That's how worse the pain was.
That is where they said it was not that my ear was blocked with wax but was blocked with puss from an infection and directed me to the ENT department at St George's Hospital. At St George's, they had a good, deep look inside my ear and said that there is an infection but beyond that, there was something stuck inside my ear (possibly a plastic) and that they were nowhere close to taking this out with me awake due to the amount of pain I was in and that I might need a surgery to get this thing out.
Me and my family assumed some things that could've possibly got inside my ear but did not expect what was actually coming. I was sent back home with ear drops and pain killers on Monday and was asked to come back on Tuesday so a consultant could check my ear.
Tuesday morning: The consultant had a look inside my ear and said the same thing as the others from the previous day. Also, that this has to be taken out by doing a surgery.
Okayyyy... that was so challenging to think about what they were actually going to find inside my ear, but I was so glad that all the pain was going to go away once for all.
Hours later, I woke up from the surgery and found an earring screw in a plastic bottle placed next to me. While all the nurses and doctors wondered how I’d manage to let that go inside my ear, I did not have an answer myself. All I knew was that this should have happened at least 4 years ago (maybe, during sleep) as I stopped wearing earrings while sleeping around 4-5 years ago.
I was also told that I had managed to push the screw further inside my ear with the use of earbuds. While some of you may know this already, earbuds are only (ONLY) to clear the outer part of your ear and not for the inside. You maybe feel uncomfortable with the ear wax, but the wax works with the ear and has a natural way of coming out on its own.
As the earring was silver-plated, it changed colour inside my ear causing an infection which caused the puss to overload, which stopped the wax from coming out the natural way. Therefore, they built up too. Overall, I had many many layers of excess built up which completely stopped my hearing on the left side.
Please please please, be careful with these kinds of things. Be mindful of what you wear to sleep, what you eat and drink, etc. Just be careful in general. Some habits might seem long to get used to but once you've gotten used to it, you won't be able to stop yourself from doing it and that's how I began to remove my earrings before bed.
You don’t have to be someone who wears earrings to read or share this. You may know people who wear earrings and sleeps with them at night. Please pass on the information.
Remember, health comes before everything! Everything!
