Do ear infections in an adult require a trip to a doctor?
Hard to say – I always go to the doctor right away because ear infections make me really miserable, and usually they load me up with antibiotics right away. But the last time, I had a different doctor than usual, who said that if there’s no clear sign that it’s bacterial, he prefers to try a week or so of painkillers and decongestants before moving on to antibiotics if they’re still needed. So I wouldn’t think it would do any major harm to wait it out for a few days and see if it’s something viral you can kick yourself. He wanted me to alternate Tylenol and Advil, and take the real behind-the-counter type of Sudafed as well, plus try lying down with the infected ear on a heating pad. You might try that over the weekend and see if things improve. Mind you, in my case it didn’t do any good and I wound up having to go to some pretty hardcore antibiotics to kick the damn thing.
I’ve got abnormally narrow ear canals and that somehow correlates with ear infections. I used to get them frequently as a kid and they were *insanely* painful. They ceased around middle school for a while, but reoccurred once during undergrad and then three times in the past two years. I’d almost forgotten how miserable they can be. For me, they’re absolute, mind-rending pain. I’m not functional at all unless I’m hopped up on T3s. I’m sure the infection would eventually clear up, but it’s not worth a week of agony and lost productivity for me. Apparently, it’s also possible for the infection to cause hearing loss (more likely in children though) or spread to other parts of the ear, most likely the mastoid. Mastoiditis, in turn, can cause inflammation in the brain, causing meningitis or abcessing. Again, this is all rather unlikely, but it would really suck to get meningitis from a sodding ear infection. More information here
