The Bezoar

I finally convinced Dave to look in my ear. And boy was it interesting.

There seems to be what he described as a "bezoar" hanging out in my ear canal. Now, it's not really a bezoar in my ear because, having Googled the word, I know that a bezoar is a ball of swallowed foreign material. I don't know a lot about anatomy, but I'm pretty sure anything I swallow should not end up in my ear. Still, bezoar is a good visual for what I have going on. It's also a great word.

Further research on the internets has revealed that a more appropriate term for this mass is cerumen impaction. Here's a definition:

We say that cerumen is impacted when it has built up in the ear canal to such a point that there may be signs that something is not quite right. It is important to note that, ideally, ears might never need cleaning—they are designed to clean themselves. Impaction often happens when people use items like cotton swabs or bobby pins to try to clean their ears. This only pushes the earwax farther into the ears and can also cause injury to the ear.

Yep. That sounds about right. I am guilty of trying to clean this ear with a cotton swab because, well, there were signs that something was not quite right. Apparently that was a bad idea. Question: Why do they make cotton swabs if they are not supposed to go in your ears? This can't be my fault alone.

So now I'm banned from using Q-tips and have to put drops in my ear to try to break up the bezoar. If that doesn't work, Dr. Dave is going to try to gently rinse out the mass with a nasal aspirator. And if that doesn't work, he's going to try to dig out the clump with some tool I'm pretty sure he's not medically trained to use. He can put in a central line, but he's never had to perform an earwax extraction. He tells me he'll watch a video first. That's reassuring.