A 31-year-old Briton was hospitalized for a week for a cotton swab stuck in his ear. This unwanted host, trapped for five years in the patient’s ear canal, ended up causing abscesses in the skull. Admitted to hospital with an ear infection, the man suffered from convulsions, severe headaches. Alexander Charlton, ENT specialist, describes this unusual case in the BMJ Case reports : “[Le patient] suffered from pain in his left ear and hearing lossesintermittent for five years “.
Examining the 30-something’s ear canal, doctors at Coventry University Hospital were surprised to remove pieces of the cotton swab. The CT scan revealed abscesses inside the skull. ENT specialists diagnosed the patient with necrotizing otitis externa, a rare disease. The infection is usually caused by bacteria and affects the ear canal, as well as the surrounding bone, reports the Daily Mail. In the case of the Briton, the bones inside the skull were affected by the infection, sparing the brain. The man did not have any neurological symptoms.
Exit the cotton swab to clean the ears
Fortunately, the traumatic experience ended well. The patient’s ear was cleaned. The patient was placed on antibiotics. The treatment reduced the abscesses and the man was released from the hospital within a week. He was completely healed after ten weeks. Since then, the Briton has banned cotton swabs from his hearing hygiene rituals.
For keep ears clean, just clean them once a week, no more, because earwax, the yellowish wax that accumulates in the ear serves as a barrier to impurities. To take care of his ears, we remove excess earwax with a damp tissue at the entrance to the external auditory canal. You can also use an ear spray. Cotton swabs are not recommended by ENTs because they can push earwax back to the eardrum and cause the formation of a ear plug.
From January 1, 2020 the plastic cotton swabs will be banned for sale in France because they pollute too much.
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