48 hours of burst eardrum and infection - in agony

[owwwwwwwwww]

Went to urgent care after a sleepless night yesterday morning. Ear and face badly swollen on one side. Acute inner ear infection and discharge burst ear drum.

Given amoxicillin three daily. And codrydamol. It has been agony. As soon as painkillers wear off I'm in pain again. I've slept on and off all day and now in pain. Surely after two days of amoxicillin I should be in less pain? I did a swab to drop into GP this morning.

Help.

It's hellishly sore, isn't it?

Gentle heat helps, a bit. I mean, it won't do much but it is slightly soothing. Like a warm flannel held there, or a warm hot water bottle.

Did they say when you'd hear re swab?
Could you ask a pharmacist what else you can take with those painkillers?

Are you eating and drinking, and peeing etc?

Yes have eaten more normally today but in between ABs and ibuprofen and codrydamol I've slept most of day. Now it's really flipping hurting again. And feels blocked again. I'm going to take more painkillers and sit up for a bit. Does this sound normal? I've been told to watch out for temp and any sign of meningitis but so far it's just the internal pain and swelling on the side of my face.

I’ve had a perforated eardrum and my kids have had one a couple of times and the pain has always been from the pressure before the perforation. Once it bursts it stops hurting. But I haven’t had facial swelling with it. Do you have a temperature? If it’s no better by tomorrow I would suggest going back to the dr.

Yes I think I will need to as the side of my face is like a balloon and the pain is on and off. I felt ok a few hours ago after eating but now it's aching and sore again and feel like it needs to drain. This is two full days of sleep and drugs and painkillers so I feel like something isn't right

Can you call 111 for some advice?

This happened to me and it was horrible! I lay on my side on a folded up towel to let all the discharge flow out (gross sorry!) and as per a pp some gentle heat on it was nice.

Is the pain still as bad as it was originally? Mine improved a bit after the drum actually burst, although it was still sore and uncomfortable (and the actual bursting was agony)

No temp

My son ended up in hospital for eight days. Was on morphine, intravenous antibiotics, had an MRI. The concern was meningitis,

his symptoms apart from the agonising pain were a temperature excruciating headache.

Keep an eye on your temperature and see GP again.

Pain hasn't changed much. It was bad the first night and I slept with a heat pack and it felt like it was draining a bit, but there is still pressure so o guess not entirely.

The PKs are strong and keeping it in check but no temp or major headache. Just feel very tired and irritable. Have had a bath up to neck today and back into bed and slept.

I don't think I have meningitis but I'd quite like it to stop hurting. Maybe wrong antibiotics...

I'm lying on a hot water bottle and clean flannel now!

DD's has been bad for about 10 days now, although the eardrum perforated over a week ago. Audiology gave her additional antibiotics today but this is all pretty normal for her ear infections unfortunately.

Mine eased pretty much as soon as it burst. Prior to that though it was fucking agony. Not helped by me also having tonsillitis at the same time. I think the worse part though was having to get my Mum to wash my hair over the side of the bath for 6 weeks whilst I covered my ear up so water didn't get inside it. I'm surprised I still have a scalp left.

Antibiotics generally take at least 48hrs to kick in which will be very soon

You're taking the co-dydramol, you can also take ibuprofen 3 times a day. The general dose is 400mg but you can take up to 600mg (3 normal tablets but check the strength of the tablets) if you need to

It's weird that the ibuprofen aren't going much (200mg x 2) but two cordydramol help. One doesn't... the pressure is horrible. Heat not helping much.

I used to get ear infections as a child and once the ear drum burst and all the gunk came out, the pain would go down so much. I think maybe you need to go back to the gp

I have had this, please go back to gp or urgent care, it sounds like you might need different antibiotics and a longer course of them. My pain didn't dissipate when my eardrum burst either and after a week on antibiotics I went back to gp (very unwell) holding a tissue over my ear. The gp asked me why I was holding it over my ear and was pretty shocked to hear it was because the discharge was still coming out (a lot!) . He put me on more antibiotics and they fincleared it up but I was very unwell for 3 weeks and left deaf in that ear with an unhealed hole in my eardrum. I thought I was going to have to have surgery but it eventually headed itself but took months. Lying on the sore ear helped the most but it was awful sp you have my sympathy