My left ear decided to stop up ten days ago. I was experiencing a bad allergy attack. That happens sometimes because of the super dry air in my heated house. Tried Zyrtec first and then switched to Claritin to get relief from the runny eyes and mucus.
I hoped it was just dried up ear wax. Five days of Debrox hasn’t helped. I occasionally get a sharp pain in the ear. Thankfully it’s brief, so far!
There’s a BIG Otolaryngology (they don’t call themselves ENT anymore) clinic in Little Rock. They have 6 branches in the outlying area.
Called three branches and was told there were no openings before early March.
I got a appointment with a ENT APRN (nurse) in a couple days. She’s due to have a baby next week. I sure hope that situation doesn’t change. No sneezing!
I’m very surprised at how hard it is to get appointments. Especially with ear aches. I could develop permanent hearing loss if a infection bursts my eardrum. I can’t wait three weeks!
I called this place because it has at least seven doctors. Thinking at least one had an opening.
Anyway, I’m thankful that I will see somebody, quickly.
It’s not doctor’s appointments, in general, specialists typically have a long wait time, especially derms.
Regarding your ear, a few months back, one of my ears just …turned off. I could hear normally one second and it was gone the next second. I also figured it was just wax and spent about a week trying to get it out with no success. I went to my GP and they said it was, in fact, just wax. They spent about 20 minutes working at it and sent me to an ENT who got it all cleared out.
I don’t know what your symptoms are, but it’s my understanding that docs (GPs and ENTs alike) take sudden loss of hearing fairly seriously. From what I read, while I couldn’t hear, is that there’s one or two things that can cause that and you only have about 2-3 weeks to get it fixed or you can end up with permanent hearing loss. It’s possible that’s why I got into the ENT in just a few days (GP was about a week).
Having said all that, if this is really bothering you, I’d suggest calling your GP or even going to a walk-in clinic. If it’s just wax, you could be fixed and hearing again in the next few hours if you go to a walk in, probably by the end of the week with your GP. Sames goes for it being some kind of infection.
I see you might have an appointment next week, so that’s good. But if you can get in somewhere sooner, I’d do that. At least partially because if the nurse goes into labor, you’re stuck with the April appointment.
At this point, IMO, you need a medical type person to look in your ear. It probably doesn’t have to be a specialist just yet.
I will call my PCP if this ENT appointment falls through.
I’ve had a long standing fear of going deaf. My grandmother lost her hearing in her late sixties. My mom lost her hearing in her late seventies. My first cousin is 68 and wears hearing aids.
I’m a musician and have always been very careful. I mostly play Acoustic and avoid amplified music.
I worry about the dept computer server and my workstation that was in my office for ten years. The fans were pretty loud. I finally moved the Server to another room.
I do want to get a hearing test after the current problem is resolved. Get a baseline of what my hearing is as I approach sixty.
When I had an ear infection a decade ago or so, I called my regular (internal medicine) physician’s group practice and another doctor in the practice saw me the day after a sleepless night, between patients. So I agree that you don’t necessarily need a specialist visit.
I am going to look into getting a humidifier added to my HVAC.
I have problems every January from heated dry air. Whenever the temp drops into the low twenties my heat runs constantly. This years allergy attack was the worst yet.
I’ll get this taken care of in the next few months. So next winter won’t trigger another attack.
I’d wager that it would be cheaper, and easier to get a small room humidifier (warm mist or cool mist) and keep it in the room(s) you spend the most time in, rather than installing an Aprilaire.
Also, I meant to mention before, if you’ve lost hearing, tell the person that answers the phone that. Many offices will consider that an emergency and get you in sooner rather than later.
Not in my experience. A couple years ago I got a head cold that quickly turned into a bilateral inner ear infection so bad that over about twenty four hours I went nearly completely deaf. I was totally deaf in my left ear and mostly deaf in my right ear. Went to my doctor and all he could say about it was that if my eardrums didn’t rupture on their own to relieve the pressure in 2 or 3 days then I should come in and they would surgically pierce them. The pressure went down on it’s own without having to have my eardrums pierced (thankfully!) but it took months for my hearing to come back (as they told me it would). They treated me like a whiny child, (politely shooing me away) which I didn’t appreciate. Sure, serious ear infections are a normal day’s work for you doctors, but it was a novel and terrifying thing for me.
As for doctors being hard to get in to see, I totally agree. Some years ago I was having stomach pains and couldn’t eat over a few weeks (so, not gas). Started to wonder if I had cancer or something. The soonest I could get in to see an internist was 4 weeks and then another 4 weeks after that to get in for an endoscopy. If I did have cancer, I shuddered to think how advanced it might have become by then. Turns out I was taking too much ibuprofen for my arthritis and it was damaging my stomach. Figured that out completely on my own, and stopped taking it and my stomach got better.
Have you had someone look in your ear at all to see what the situation is? You need to start with your GP, or a CVS Minute Clinic or Urgent Care before going right to a specialist. Why would you wait over a month and spend Specialist-Sized money before even having someone look in your ear?
Do you have difficulty getting an appointment with your PCP?
I always start there. My PCP is affiliated with a large hospital system practice, there are lots of specialists in the building. If my PCP decides I need a specialist, she’ll usually make a call and send me upstairs right away. One time I had to wait two days, because it wasn’t urgent and the specific doctor she wanted me to see did not have office hours before then. But if it had been urgent I could have seen someone on the spot.
I didn’t think he’d offer much help with my ear. I wanted to save a step and copay fee by going directly to an ENT…
I remember in childhood family doctors were very hands on. Some even did simple procedures in their office. They put a lot of casts on kids broken arms.
In my experience, modern PCP’s don’t do nearly as much themselves. They do blood work, write prescriptions and give referrals.
Which is one of the reasons I left private practice 17 years ago for my current public practice. I can take care of 90+% of my patients’ problem, including removal of foreign bodies from eyes, ears, noses; putting on casts, injecting a variety of joints, biopsying skin lesions, lancing thrombosed hemorrhoids, etc. etc. etc. But the specialists get paid MORE for doing the same things, so in the private sector, they’re all shunted away from primary care and into the specialty clinics. While in my current setting, I get to do tons of procedures, if I want to. Or refer if it’s beyond my scope.
I miss the old days of being the first surgical assistant at my patients’ hernia repairs or appendectomies, doing the prenatal care of the expectant mom then delivering her and doing the newborn exam on baby. Then putting older brother’s elbow back into place when it got pulled on too hard by dad, trying to get him into the car and giving him a classic ‘nursemaid’s elbow dislocation’ (not abuse, just a place that can get dislocated easily in young kids).
My clinic has an urgent care time every morning from 7-9am. I’ve used it twice and was seen by Nurse Practitioner. She was very helpful and kind when I had UTI. Altho’ my t1 diabetes scared her. She asked me to come back the next day to see the Doctor. Which I did and he agreed on her instructions. I’ve come to trust her a lot. She’s my first call if I’m have a problem, she has no issue with passing me on to the Doc or a specialist if she’s unsure. She pregnant and fixin’ to be off on her maternity leave. I hope she returns.
OOoh, you have my sympathies – ear infections SUCK.
And it could still be stopped up wax – just because debrox didn’t work doesn’t mean anything. Years ago I had wax in my ear so dense that all the debrox did was soften the top of the wad and made it worse. It had to be flushed out by my doctor. shudder
So keep your fingers crossed.
Have you tried the Minute Clinic at CVS? Maybe they’ll be able to help, or at least reccomend something?
