Water in ears and infections: Please help guys!

Man, I need to ask a huge favor of everyone: What do you guys do for water in your ears? I use Mack’s Wax ear plugs normally but have a hell of a time keeping water out of my ears and seem to get a lot of ear aches/infections. Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? Should I go without ear plugs? Yup, I use all those ear drops and stuff. Any recommendations? This is a huge limiting factor in my swim training. I’m always fighting an ear infection.

Tom,

For years I have once a week or so used a mixture of 1/2 white vinegar, 1/2 rubbing alcohol in my ears and it has kept all infections away. I just mix it a bottle at a time (lasts about a year), and pour 1/2 a cap full in each ear. You aren’t married, right? This mixture doesn’t do much for ear nibbling, if you’re in to that sort of thing:-)!

Hmmm, you’re the second person to recommend vinegar/alcohol. I’ve been using the store bought drops. They don’t do too much. Worth a try, thanks!

Tom-

You can get a custom-fitted (which might appeal to a fit-meister such as your self :)) set of plugs made at an audiology (hearing aid) clinic or ENT dr office for about $40. If this problem is bothering you enough it may be worth it.

As far as the Mack’s, I find I need to disregard the instruction not to make a little finger out of the silicone to stick in the canal for the sake of water tightness.

Thanks for all your helpful posts,

Scott Atkinson

this may be too simplistic, but i found that i can pull my swim cap down low enough to cover my ears. then as long as i keep my head facing down (which i should do anyways) i get no water.

Tom,

I recently completed Navy Dive Training (in Panama City, FL)…We’d spend 2-4 hours per day “wet and sandy.” There were no ear plugs (they wouldn’t stay in with the training we were doing).

Instead, they told us to pour a cap of rubbing alcohol in our ears immediately after swimming each day (that helped the water in our ears evaporate). Then, before bed, we’d repeat the process again to help clear/prevent infection. If you have any cuts/scrapes, the alcohol can burn a bit, but it eliminated my ear problems. Besides, it’s MUCH cheaper than buying specialty drops.

Tom, I’ve been a serious scuba diver for over twenty years with well over a thousand dives in the Great Lakes and Caribbean. About ten years ago I got a really bad ear infection while diving in Cozumel, Mexico. Ever since then it’s been a semi-recurring chronic problem. Go to your family physician and get some anti-biotic ear drops. It should solve the problem. Put a couple of drops in your ears immediately after you get out of the water every time you swim in open water.

If you have an infection, stay out of the water until it is completely gone. Then, right after you swim, use drops-everytime! The specialty drops are usually alcohol with a 5% mixture of glycerine. The glycerine just helps the drops stay on your ear a bit longer. You can buy glycerine at the drug store, and mix it with alcohol yourself. When you clean your ears, don’t go deep into your ear canal. Your ear needs some wax to help protect it.

I supose the vinegar will help should you get a yeast infection in your ear. I don’t really know what else to say about that.

The drops are most important whenever you swim in lakes or oceans. I wnet through this speech every year with parents and kids on my swim teams. Every year some kid would come down with swimmer’s ear. I would ask, “Did you use drops or alcohol in the kid’s ears?” They would say, “no,” every time. It works, unless you have already become “chronic.”

“The specialty drops are usually alcohol with a 5% mixture of glycerine”

I found that the over the counter drops didn’t do the job for me whenever I get my ear problems. I’ve had to get a stronger prescription solution from my family physician. However, it’s probably best to try the non prescription stuff first.

This one I had to look up cuase the first advice is get ear plugs… whcih as another poster mentioned can be fit by an ENT

One text I came baout advices (obviously) keeping the ear dry… one method is a hair dryer. The problem with making your own solutions is that you need to keep them sterile… no need to make a problem worse.

the other thing that you may want to do is to make sure that you have the classic swimmers ear (acute diffuse otitis externa) Because there are other conditions which may look like this such as a variety of skin coditions.

The best thing that you can do is to get treated for your swimmers ear from your doctor with some antibiotic drops and the whole deal… go back to swimming with judiciously keeping your ears dry… if this still doesn’t consider going to a dermatologist and see if they can look at it further

oh yeah and no Q tips in the ears… bad… for many reasons

If your otitis is bad enough it is possible that it is involveing your bone and other bad things.

It may also be helpful to speak to other people at your pool and see if they are having the same problem, it may be an issue with the pool as well.

translated I have no good advice, good luck, keep us informed on your progress

Finally a post that I can contribute to ! , I suffered for years with this problem before having the custom plugs made, cost me about $75cdn and worth every penny. The tech even asked what colour I would like them to be ! I chose Dayglo orange so I could find them if they ever popped out but has not happened yet.

I used to get tons of infections. That is until I started using rubbing alcohol. A few drops with an eye dropper thingy does the trick. The water just pours right out. Feels pretty damn good too.

Just make sure you don’t do this if you already have an infection or something going on in your ear. If you do, it can hurt like hell.

The consensus here seems to be the ear drops. I’ll do that. I don’t know if I will do the custom ear plugs just becasue I know I will loose them. They wouldn’t make it through one race. When I hit the beach, I just pop those wax ones out and politely hand them to the nearest adoring fan (nasty). The comment (thanks again taku)about the Q-tips is a good one also. I was using those, probably incorrectly. Also, the fella who mentioned the swim cap does have something. It is the first “line of defense”. I notice a better, newer one does the job better. Thanks guys! If my ears get worse, I’ll post it.

I used to get really bad ear infections. The last infection was really awful enough that I went to an Ears/Nose/Throat specialist instead of my family doctor.

He was adament about me using the mixture of white vinegar and rubbing alcohol. Haven’t had a single infection since.

He recommended 90% vinegar and 10% alcohol. The vinegar was to dry the ear out, the alcohol to sterilize. I don’t think the proportions are very critical.

So count me on the bandwagon.

BTW, my pharmacist at CVS gave me a nice bottle with eye dropper to use.

Tom,

This might sound too simplistic but I used to have water in my ears all the time until I started using Speedo ear plugs (the silicone ones that look like little Christmas trees) which can be cut to fit. Now it’s never a problem. I also wear a nose clip. When exiting the water in races I just put the plugs in my swim cap with the clip and goggles. Sometimes I lose them in the transition area but they’re only $3.00.

Richard

What you could do is train in teh custom ear plugs and tough it out on race day… It would avoid the bulk of your exposure and you wouldn’t lose them evey race day.

I swam in HS , college,and in most every crumby ditch triathlon for almost 35 years and never got “swimers ear”. Then I took up surfing and got them all the time. Not sure if it is the getting slapped by the waves or what, but now I would have ear problems every time I swam. Not good for tri training. I use those yellow foam plugs that are designed for industrial noise. They are cheap and keep the water out pretty good.
Drops help, but that is a bit like closing the barn door too late. Even though they are a bit dangerous they work good for TT on the bike as you can really “hear” your breathing . Aloha G

Actually ear plugs (those yellow sound ones ) are associated with developing otitis externa (swimmers ear) Same idea as not using Q-tips… If you have a problem with swimmers ear I would reccomend against them.

The reason you may have developed swimmers ear now is for the same reason that you develop allergies later in life… you just develop a sensitivity to something in the water… Getting extra water in your ear does help but that may not be the only thing that is going on

My wife and many of my surfing and swimming buddies swear by them

http://www.proplugs.com/

check it out
.

When I was on the high school swim team, there was an exchange student from Norway who joined the team my junior year. Johann was quite a character. I think some of that stemmed from the fact that he was a Korean child who had been adopted by his Norwegian parents. I never could get used to listening to his Scandinavian accent…but I digress.

After practice, he would stand on the deck, tilt his head to one side and jump up and down to get the water out of his ears. Looks really funny, but it works. Now I use a combination of the “Johann dance” and rubbing alcohol down the ears after I swim to get rid of the excess. Someone told me that alcohol is heavier than water, so when it goes down inside the ear, it sinks below the water. Then as you tilt your head and and jump, shake or whatever, the heavier alcohol helps drive the water out. Plus, the alcohol sterilizes the inner ear to help prevent infections. Don’t have a scientific paper to cite here, but don’t have any ear infections either.

So, Johann, “ears” to you for many laps of painfree ears. And, at your next race, when you see the goofy guy shaking his head and bouncing around as he comes out of the water…don’t call the paramedics, I’m fine, really.