It’s the damnedest thing. I have no idea what I did to injure my ear for this to happen. It’s never happened before, either. When I played sports back in school I knew guys it happened to. But it never happened to me. Not even when I went out for wrestling.
Anyway, on Monday I went to the doctor. He drained it with a hypodermic needle, packed it up, and sent me on my way. He said a little fluid might return but that usually get’s absorbed by the body.
My ass. Today it swelled up to double what it was in the beginning. I’m tempted to just take a hypo and drain the sucker myself. But I’m going to the doc again tomorrow afternoon and let him look at it.
Have any of you had to deal with this? How often do these keep coming back? Do you drain it yourself or have a pro do it? We had a coach that did it for guys, but that was over 30 years ago.
Note that I’m asking how you deal with it, not how I should. This is not a request for medical advice. I’m going back to the Dr. tomorrow.
Huh. I thought cauliflower ear was when the actual cartilage of the ear was damaged, so the whole edge wrinkled up like a cauliflower. Ignorance fought.
The picture doesn’t do the condition justice. It’s completely swelled up with puss and blood. My upper ear right now looks like there is a Superball under the skin. That’s the size of it.
Just a note: Immediately when I clicked the link in the OP I got a trojan warning from my anti-virus. It’s entirely possible it was from something else and just a timing coincidence, but just fyi.
Anyway, I hope your ear gets better! That sounds horrible.
My brother had problems with it when he played Rugby. It would swell up with blood and he used to drain it right there by the field - kind of a macho thing. These days his ear is sort of misshapen from being jabbed and drained so often. It adds character.
I don’t have a medical background, so take that into consideration when I say:
I’ve always considered cauliflower ear permanent deformation of the cartilage as the result of multiple impacts (boxers, wrestlers, mma (like Frank Trigg)). There was a Kimbo Slice fight on tv a couple of years ago in which he almost almost *Kowalskied a guy whose ear looked like an alien life form. I’ve never heard of an ear swollen with blood, pus, and fluids as cauliflower ear, but, again, I have no medical background.
In any case, good luck, and of course: Pictures, please!
They are pretty common in judo, where we don’t wear ear protectors.
I thought the treatment was to drain them and then put some kind of compression bandage on the ear to prevent it from filling up again.
But have a doctor do it. I know guys who ignored it, and it is kind of unsightly. One guy who was a ground work specialist, you could hardly fold his ear.
I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so cauliflower ear is fairly common. Both times I’ve gotten it I’ve just had it drained and packed by a doctor, been told to keep off the mat for a week, and it hasn’t flared up again.
The second time one of the guys tried to show me how to drain the ear on my own, but my ear just ended up covered in shallow pinpricks because, as it turns out, I have a healthy aversion to causing myself pain and didn’t want to drive the needle in any further.
Some people may be more familiar with the permanent scarring that results from cauliflower ear, instead of the onset of the condition caused by crushing tissue in the ear. I guess the term is approriate for both.
Sometimes this can be an infection, or caused by a reaction to an insect bite, or a simple compression from forcing on clothing with too tight a collar. I had something like that happen while jammed under a sink to do some plumbing work. It wasn’t that bad, I put ice on it, and a couple of days later the swelling was gone. No outward signs left, but I could feel a little lump in my ear for years afterward.
Related stories:
The wrestler Killer Kowalski cemented his reputation in a match with Yukon Eric when a piece of Eric’s heavily scarred ear broke off. Later, when the two could not draw much of a crowd for one of many rematches, Eric said "“Shit, that’s a lousy house. I might have to sacrifice another ear.”
When Mike Tyson bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear, more than one person wondered if it tasted like cauliflower.
The wiki sort of agrees with you - as I read it, the hematoma leads to the dead cartilage & permanent damage, but both can be called ‘Cauliflower ear’. Ignoring the injury seems to lead to the permanent damage shown in the picture.
Well, on Friday the Dr. drained my ear again. But he said it looked like whatever the injury was isn’t healing internally and it was going to fill up with blood again. So he refereed me to an ear wax, booger, and loogie specialist.
I went to the specialist today. He drained the ear again and put stitches in to seal up the injured area, and packed some fresh gauze rolls around the stitches. I look fuggin’ ridiculous. He tried to numb up the area but it still hurt like a bitch.
He gave me some antibiotic cream and pills, and I have to go back in 10 days. Now that the numby stuff has worn off my ear is throbbing like a man who fornicates with another guys maternal parent.
