Affecting the outer ear, swimmer’s ear is a painful condition resulting from inflammation, irritation, or infection. These symptoms often occur after water gets trapped in your ear, with subsequent spread of bacteria or fungal organisms. Because this condition commonly affects swimmers, it is known as swimmer’s ear. Swimmer’s ear (also called acute otitis externa) often affects children and teenagers, but can also affect those with eczema (a condition that causes the skin to itch), or excess earwax. A common source of the infection is increased moisture trapped in the ear canal, from baths, showers, swimming, or moist environments. When water is trapped in the ear canal, bacteria that normally inhabit the skin and ear canal multiply, causing infection of the ear canal.
The most common symptoms of swimmer’s ear are itching inside the ear and pain that gets worse when you tug on the auricle (outer ear). Other signs and symptoms include fever, discharge, swollen lymph nodes. Swimmer’s ear needs to be treated to reduce pain and eliminate any effect it may have on your hearing, as well as to prevent the spread of infection
If left untreated, complications resulting from swimmer’s ear may include:
- Hearing loss : When the infection clears up, hearing usually returns to normal.
- Recurring ear infections (chronic otitis externa): Without treatment, infection can continue.
- Bone and cartilage damage (malignant otitis externa) : Ear infections when not treated can spread to the base of your skull, brain, or cranial nerves. Diabetics and older adults are at higher risk for such dangerous complications.
Treatment for the early stages of swimmer’s ear includes careful cleaning of the ear canal by your otolaryngologist and use of eardrops that inhibit bacterial or fungal growth and reduce inflammation.