Every once in a while I say people can become homeless for things that are not in their control. Read below how a simple ear infection can cause severe damage to your hearing which can get you fired from your job.
Not only can you lose your hearing and your job what about your life? Well that too. I almost died about ten years ago from an ear infection that went to my brain- meningitis was the culprit. Who would have thought that someone who has a lot of ear infections can have the infection still in their ear eating away at their bones? Once that infection eats away a thin liner of the bone then comes the brain and that same infection that you had many years ago may now go to the brain infecting your brain causing meningitis. So read below and if you or your kids had lots of ear infections go to a doc and ask them about this. A CAT or a MRI can pick up the infection and if it is in your bones you must get treatment. You heard me say this in the past, “You must be your own Doctor these days.” Verify and ask questions. Do yourself a favor get the medical records from your doctor visits and read all the notes and tests and ask questions it might just save your life. Below is what I had done to me and it is present in a lot of people who have had chronic ear infections. If your kid is very sick and has a high fever ask your ER doc if Meningitis is possible?
Cholesteatoma (ker-less-tea-a-toe-ma) is a progressive destructive ear disease. Most cases occur in children and young adults, but it can affect any age. Skin builds up in layers and erodes the bone of the middle ear and mastoid. In its early stages, cholesteatoma tends to attack the ossicles, the small bones conducting sound from the eardrum to the inner ear. This causes partial deafness, sometimes with unpleasant smelling discharge and pain. If the disease progresses, it can erode the inner ear causing total and permanent deafness and tinnitus. The inner ear also contains the balance organ. If cholesteatoma erodes into the balance organ, vertigo, a severe form of dizziness, results. Cholesteatoma can also attack the facial nerve causing facial paralysis. In rare cases the disease erodes upwards. The roof of the ear is the floor of the brain. If this thin plate of bone is breached, meningitis, brain abscess and death can result. The cholesteatoma is made of layers of dead skin, like an onion. Only the outer layer, known as the matrix, contains live growing skin cells. Cholesteatoma is the most serious form of chronic ear infection. It is not a tumor, though it can behave like one. It is not cancer and never spreads widely throughout the body – though it can cause quite enough trouble by its local destructive effects. In most cases, the progress of cholesteatoma is slow. It can take years or even decades to eat its way slowly through the structures of the ear. Rapidly progressive disease, over a time course of a few months and sometimes weeks, is commoner in children and in the presence of active acute infection.