Apparently yes! In one of the latest cases in Canada, a 31-year-old man was admitted to the hospital after collapsing and having a seizure. The seizure was followed after curing other symptoms in the previous weeks such as: initially, discharge and pain in the left ear that progressed to severe nausea, headaches and vomiting. After examination, the general practitioner concluded that all symptoms refer to an ear infection and antibiotics should fix it.
After being stabilized, at the hospital, the male patient described other symptoms that had developed: difficulty in remembering names, confusion, sleepiness and hearing loss in the last few years.
In order to get to the correct diagnosis, the doctors made additional tests including MRI and CT to the patient’s skull. After getting the scans, the doctors saw that there were abscesses in the patient’s skull and sift tissue in the canal of his left ear. The results of testing the swab from the ear discharge showed that it has very dangerous bacteria.
The doctors decided to proceed the treatment with stronger antibiotics, but also to explore the ear canal under anesthesia. During this examination, the doctors found a part of cotton swab in the patient’s ear that was left behind. Afterwards, they executed a procedure to remove the cotton swab, to clean thoroughly the ear canal and to remove the infected cells.
Finally, the patient was diagnosed with a quite rare infection in the external ear canal accompanied inflammation of the underlying temporal bone called NEO or necrotizing external otitis. Such infection is common to senior diabetic patients, but not for healthy and young people.
In case this condition is not treated, it can progress to potentially fatal infection of a bone in the base of the skull called osteomyelitis.
Luckily, this patient was cured successfully. After ten weeks of antibiotics treatment and a CT scan, there were no traces of the infection and the patient could return to his normal daily routine.
The presented case only confirms the dangers of using cotton swabs. Many medical studies have shown that even temporary usage of cotton swabs can cause certain complications and damage to the ears such as infection and retention of the cotton bud, impacted earwax, trauma even tympanic membrane perforation.
One of the latest studies in the USA just stated that in the U.S. hospitals, each day minimum 34 children are treated due to complications and injuries caused by cotton swabs.
Therefore, it is strongly recommended for everyone to clean their ears with a soft washcloth only, wiping the outside of each ear, because the cotton swabs only push the wax further in the ear canal and make it tighter that later can lead to further complications.
