I woke up on Monday morning two weeks ago with pain in my ear. That was a surprise. The last time I had an ear infection was when I was in elementary school, a long time ago. My first thought was that I had something like swimmer’s ear. It has been a cold damp spring after a long drought. I thought perhaps the humidity had let an infection start around the hearing aid in my right ear.
I began using alcohol drops. That made the itching go away. But something didn’t feel quite right.
On Wednesday I began to hear popping sounds in my right ear. Did I have fluid in my ear? I didn’t have a cold all winter. My nose was not stuffy; my throat was not sore. I decided to take Guaifenesin. I also added Proberry, Stinging Nettle Leaves, and Vitamin A. It was sort of a shot gun approach. I was surprised to feel drainage start down the back of my throat. The Guaifenesin was breaking something up that I didn’t know I had.
Thursday I was better, but the popping sounds continued. I hate going into a weekend with an unknown. My hearing is already impaired by inherited nerve deafness. Leaving an ear infection untreated could increase my hearing loss. I made an appointment with our family doctor for Friday afternoon.
She looked in my left ear and it was fine. She looked in my right ear, and there was obviously fluid in my inner ear. It was not infected.
My doctor is slow to write prescriptions and reads a lot about self-help remedies. She said studies had shown that Guaifenesin didn’t really help fluid in the ear, but that antihistamines did. She listed the three most common over the counter antihistamines and said:
Claritin is the mildest
Allegra dries people out the most.
Zyrtec is in the middle. She usually recommends Zyrtec.
I said that since I wanted to dry up the fluid, I thought I would try Allegra, and she agreed. She also wanted me to use a saline nasal spray. Gradually, the popping sounds went away. That was good, but I couldn’t see in my ear. How was I going to know when the fluid was all gone? Then a funny thing happened.
My digital hearing aids communicate with each other. One of the ways they do that is when I power them on they each make four chimes of different pitches. Sometime last fall I stopped hearing all four chimes in my right ear. I took the hearing aid in for repair, but they couldn’t find anything wrong. In the spring I took them again. They cleaned the device and put in new tubes. I could hear one chime well and two chimes faintly. The audiologist had no explanation. I was frustrated that they weren’t working right.
I put my hearing aids in yesterday and heard all four chimes in both ears! I guess I have had fluid in my ear since last fall. I don’t have any idea what caused my Eustachian tube to block.
The Bible says in several places that Christians are to be thankful for everything.
Giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20
Rejoice in the Lord always Philippians 4:4.
Give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, James 1:2
Sometimes that is hard to do. But right now I see that my hearing aids were a warning that something was wrong in my ear. I am thankful that my ears weren’t infected or damaged. And I’m thankful that the hearing aids confirm that the fluid is gone. Next time instead of complaining, I will rejoice that they are alerting me to a problem that I can’t see.
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