I have had an ear infection for a couple days now and have “Googled” and “WebMD’d” as much information on the cause as possible.  I have reason to believe that I have swimmer’s ear.  A day or two before I got the infection I was taking a shower and intentionally put my ear in the stream of water as I had an itch and have always had a re-occuring problem with wax build up in my ear and this had never been a problem before.  Its a quick simple answer to cleaning some extra wax out of my ear.

Stupid!

My inner ear is swollen, and the part of my cheak just in front of the ear is tender.  I feel like I have a fever but its hard to be sure as I don’t have a thermometer.  On my birthday I checked it while visit my wife, which it was 100.5 then.  Now I believe it has gotten worse and spread to the other ear.

I have purchased about $20 worth of OTC drugs to try and treat it myself.  My wife keeps telling me to go to the V.A. clinic which I dread.  I think part of me is that they will turn me away, as I do remember that I had a physical to determine what physical disabilities I have developed because of the Army.  Ears isn’t on my list.  This is another assumption and I will only know if I go there, but part of me also doesn’t want to get off the computer drive 20 minutes and wait for 3 hours to say “keep doing what you are doing”.  Again another assumption and as of lately I haven’t been right on too many things.

Currently I am using this swimmer’s ear drops and cotton balls.  Which it seems to help relieve some of the pain and itching, but after I take the cotton balls out my ears seem to pop alot, which make it incredibly hard to hear with or without the cotton.