A boil in the ear is a very unpleasant problem. This inflammation of the hair follicle and the adjacent sebaceous gland can be accompanied by severe pain and fever, which negatively affects working capacity and well-being.

Causes of the appearance of a boil in the ear

Possible reasons:

  • non-compliance with basic hygiene rules;
  • various kinds of mechanical damage (scratching) and subsequent infection with staphylococcus;
  • ARI due to hypothermia;
  • prolonged use of antibiotics and as a result of this - a decrease in immunity;
  • endocrine disruptions.

The abscess leads to swelling of the ear canal and compression of the nerve fibers, which provokes severe discomfort.

Symptoms and signs of a boil

Symptoms of a boil in the ear:

  • redness of the skin;
  • itching
  • bursting pains in the ear;
  • increased irritability;
  • weakness;
  • noise and ringing in the ears;
  • enlarged lymph nodes;
  • one-sided hearing loss due to narrowing of the auditory canal;
  • temperature rise.

The patient cannot eat, drink and talk normally, since all these movements cause him considerable discomfort.

It is difficult to diagnose inflammation in babies, as they still cannot accurately explain their well-being with words. Parents should pay attention to the behavior of the baby: he will constantly reach for a sore ear with a pen, pull him, cry, refuse food. When examined in the child’s ear, parents may notice swelling and severe redness. Pain usually worsens at night, so a child or adult cannot sleep normally.

Localization Classifications

A single abscess is called a boil.In mild cases, such inflammation looks like a normal red pimple with a purulent head. If there are a lot of them, then such a disease has its medical name - furunculosis. The appearance of multiple boils is an alarming signal about serious malfunctions in the body.

Stages of the disease:

  1. Initial. Maturation of abscess (takes 1-2 days). At this stage, you can prevent its development. Accompanied by redness and itching.
  2. Necrosis. Inflammation is localized in a specific place. This occurs about 3-4 days. A dense purulent rod is formed.
  3. Maturation. Pus comes out, there is a general improvement in well-being and a subsidence of the inflammatory process.
  4. Recovery. As a rule, this process takes 7-10 days.

The localization of purulent abscesses is different. Sometimes they appear on the head directly behind the ear, on the lobe or in the auricle, affecting the cartilage tissue. Such neoplasms are easily treatable and do not pose a particular danger. The localization of an abscess in the ear canal is considered dangerous, since the infection can easily spread further - to the middle ear and eardrum.

Diagnosis and treatment of a boil

An experienced specialist will not be difficult to diagnose an abscess during a general examination. For clarification, the method of otoscopy, a general blood test, and bacteriological purulent exudate are often used. Treatment of a boil in the ear can be carried out both at home and in the hospital - it all depends on the severity of the inflammation. Hospitalization is usually prescribed in the presence of several large abscesses, especially in children.

Drug therapy

At the initial stage, vodka warming compresses, washing with peroxide, dressings with Dimexide, tar or ichthyol ointment, tampons with Vishnevsky ointment or Levomekol, ultraviolet irradiation are often used. It often happens that the neoplasm simply resolves and does not reach the stage of maturation. In advanced cases, a cycle of antibiotic injections can be prescribed.

Important! At elevated temperatures, drugs are prescribed to reduce it.

At home, it is quite possible to cure the boil within a week. Special narrow swabs with ointment-drawing ointments and antiseptics are often applied to an already opened boil. Washings with boron vaseline are also often used, which helps to remove annoying itching at the recovery stage.

Surgery

Long-growing large boils of large sizes are often recommended to be removed surgically. They also resort to surgery in cases where the prescribed treatment for some reason does not help. The patient is given local anesthesia and an autopsy is performed on the inflammation formed in the outer ear. The purulent rod is removed along with the affected cells. After removing pus, ointments with antibiotics and immunomodulators are often prescribed. If the rehabilitation process goes according to plan, the patient is quickly discharged from the hospital.

Folk remedies

With folk remedies you need to be very careful. Different douching is strictly prohibited! In no case should liquid get into a sore ear. Also, scratching and extrusion of an not yet ripened abscess are not allowed.

At home, the emerging abscess can be heated, but this can not be done too often. A quarter of an hour a day is enough. To do this, it is enough to lie with a sick ear on a pleasantly warm heating pad wrapped in a soft towel.

Boils can be lubricated with self-made ointment: at 0.5 tbsp. l crushed marigold take 15 g of petroleum jelly, mix and use as directed several times a day.

A good effect is the use of baked onions, which are used as a compress. But if the inflammation is localized directly in the ear canal, it is difficult to use this method.

Also, people treat boils with a mixture of fried onions and garlic. You can just soak turunda in a liquid and put it in your ear.

An autopsy of a purulent abscess can occur at any time, so you should always sleep on the side of the inflamed ear so that the pus that leaked out during sleep does not get inside and does not provoke deterioration.

Complications and prognosis

Incorrect treatment will not only not help, but will also lead to the formation of carbuncles - extensive skin lesions, otitis media, sepsis, thrombophlebitis, meningitis. In the head, blood circulation is very intense, so pathological microorganisms that enter the bloodstream can reach the brain in a short time and lead to serious consequences. This is especially dangerous for young children: getting an infection in the brain can be fatal.

Prevention

From childhood, young children need to be accustomed to the fact that you can not climb into the ear with dirty hands and poke around with different objects for no reason. This can lead not only to the formation of a boil, but also to a decrease or loss of hearing.

The rules are very simple:

  1. Try not to allow water to enter your ear when washing your hair or taking a shower. This is especially true for people with sensitive skin.
  2. Properly clean the auricles. Cotton buds are not designed to clean the ear canal. The passage itself needs to be cleaned with a cotton flagellum dipped in peroxide, just by putting it in your ear for 5 minutes.
  3. Do not supercool. In windy and cold weather, wear a hat covering your ears.
  4. Timely cure diseases, preventing their transition to a chronic form.
  5. Timely treat scratches with special antiseptic agents.

Also, no one has canceled the strengthening of immunity with the help of proper nutrition, reasonable hardening, and long walks in the fresh air.

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