HORRIBLE swimmers ear! Not responding to antibiotics!! !

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I have to take the maximum dose of Vicodin and Ibuprofin just to make the pain subside enough to sleep. Last night I woke up as soon as the pain meds wore off and had to take more. When the meds wear off the pain gets so bad that it hurts from closing my jaw or just touching the left side of my face. It’s that bad.

My ear started hurting on Monday, and got extremely painful Wednesday night. I’ve been to the ER twice in the past two days. The first antibiotics I took didn’t work so I went back to the ER yesterday afternoon. They used a scope to see in my ear and sucked out all the pus with a little vacuum. This had to be the WORST pain in my life! I screamed a couple times when he got too close to my eardrum with the vacuum thingy AAGH!

Right now I’m taking 500 mg Levaquin orally once a day and Ciproflox drops twice a day. It’s been 24 hours since I took the first dose on the new meds but I’m still in pain. I’ve been waiting for so long for the antibiotics to start to work. I remember having ear infections in the past and the antibiotics always started to work within 12 hours. I’m 27 years old and otherwise very healthy - get a cold like once a year and that’s it! I’m getting really scared now that this will never go away - that this is some weird strain of bacteria that’s going to kill me! I’m so tired of the pain, and the Vicodin makes me feel like a zombie. This sucks so much I can’t believe it. I feel I might just toss myself out the window if this goes on more than another day. I don't want to go to the ER again. I don't think they'd know what to do with me now. This is absolutely the worst thing in my life!

Try two to four grams of vitamin C with rose hips.

jeeze man, as a kid i would get ear infections alot, its a horrible pain, of course back in the olden days i read they used to pump pressure into your ear canal then make u sip some water, the pressuer would force the fluid in your ear drum back, it must have been horrible, worse then the vacumn, i cant beleive that did not work man, i woulda done the vacume thing if it woulda worked.

I get good pain medication on occasion when I can aford it for my back, which hurts sometimes, if u were nearby i would hook ya up its basicly morphene, tho its addictive, but i know if u had it it would help u temporarily. I hope u get better tomorrow.

I know that hurts! My mom used some type of oil in the ear, was it sweet oil or some formulation of olive oil. Don't know if that will help, but either way I pray that God will heal you and not let you stay in pain.

The vacuum did provide relief for a few hours afterward, though the procedure hurt like a mother. The thing is this is an infection in the ear canal (though it may have spread a little to the middle ear and lymph node). I remember middle ear infections as a kid, and with those at least you got relief when the ear drum breaks or it starts to get better quick with antibiotics. This bacteria is a real tough bastard though. It just won't DIE. I would pour some acid into my ear to kill it, but then I would never be able to hear again.

I'm doing a little better lately though. I'm able to get by with 500 mg Vicodin (1 pill) and 600 mg Ibuprofin (3 pills) every 6 hours. At first I was doing 1000 mg Vicodin (2 pills) and 800 mg Ibuprofin (4 pills) every 6 hours. Hopefully this is the antibiotic working. It’s just taking soooo long. I remember as a kid with antibiotics that the infection usually went away in one day.

Now I’m worried that the wick the ENT doctor put into my ear is not coming out. He said it should fall out by itself in two days. It’s almost been two days and the wick is stuck so far in that I can’t feel it with my finger.

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Its risky but I have combined up to 3 different OTC pain medications when I was in extreme pain. Drugs with different metabolic pathways can be combined. I've combined ibuprofen , acetaminophen, and aspirin. Max doses every 4 hours.

I used to get really bad earaches from water getting in my ears in the shower. Now when I get out of the shower, I use those alcohol-based drops that swimmers use to dry that water up. I also started taking Prevacid for gastric reflux, which I think was also bothering my ears. So those two things helped me. If you also have heartburn a lot, it might be causing your ear infections.

Marshall. Try the vitamin C. Use the cheap 500 milligram tablets.

That's what I've been doing. Vicodin is hydrocodone and acetaminophen plus I'm taking ibuprofen so that's three different medications. The doctor said it was okay to combine these as long as I take them with food and drink lots of water. I think the pain is finally getting a little better and I’ve cut down to 250 mg Vicodin and 400 mg ibuprofen last dose. I still can’t hear out of my left ear but the swelling on the left side of my face has gone down some.



Strange thing is this didn’t start from water in my ears. My ear was itching a little Sunday night and I was sticking my finger into the canal. The doctor thinks that’s what did it. Is there anything you can do to stop itchy ear canals? Maybe I’ll ask the doctor if there’s some kind of OTC drop I can use to stop the ear itch so I don’t have to stick my finger in my ear.

I don’t ever want this to happen again! I had all 4 wisdom teeth removed when I was 20 and that pain was nothing compared to this. I don’t even recall taking Vicodin for more than a day after. I broke my foot once and even that didn’t hurt nearly as bad as this ear infection. This was without a doubt the worst pain in my life!



I’ve taken vitamin C before. It might be good for prevention or minor earaches, but in my experience it doesn’t do jack after a raging infection has developed.

First off:

Be very careful with a severe ear infection. It can be a misdiagnosis, or caused by something else.

(I.E. My brain tumour was misdiagnosed for 8 months as a near constant inner ear infection because the ears kept getting bad due to tube clogging)

A few things to try:

-Tea Tree Oil. Add a few drops of pure stuff to some OTC ear oil. It kills just about everything. I had a strain of fungus in my ear the antifungals and anti-biotics wouldn't touch, it cleared it out liquidy split.

- avoid wheat and milk completely until it clears up. It makes it easier on your body. Especially avoid the milk.

- Try putting heating salt in someway (I found a heating pack with a sock full of salt inserted worked great) and sleep on the heatingpack/salt with your bad ear down. This encourages drainage. It also helps with the extreme pain.

Warning: Tea tree oil may make your ear itch a bit, over the counter oils work nice. Don't go for the polysporin ear drops. They are just antibiotic, and don't seem to do any good in most situations.