Medical Questions » Ears Questions » Question No. 286
| Question: | I seem to live at my GP' s every summer because of ear infections in my children. They often start at the most inconvenient time of midnight, and cause them terrible pain for several days. I would like to prevent this problem in future and would appreciate it if you could tell me what causes ear infections in my children every summer? |
| Answer: | Summer is the time of year when children seem to live in swimming pools, and often seem to spend more time under the water than on the surface. The most significant medical problem associated with this phenomenon is otitis externa, or swimmer' s ear.
With this disease, the outer ear canal and the outer surface of the ear drum become infected and very painful. It may occur under many circumstances, but by far the most common is retained water in the ear canal.
Bacteria normally live in the outer ear, but if the canal remains constantly wet, the type of bacteria can change from the good ones that are meant to be there, to a type that can cause tissue damage and infection. "Water of any type can start this infection, but sea water is less likely to be a problem. Hot spa baths (particularly public ones) and swimming pools are the worst causes.
Private facilities are less likely to cause problems than public ones, not because the public pools and saunas are poorly cared for, but because far more people use them and introduce more bacteria. Warm water is also a greater problem than cold.
Another common cause of outer ear infections is wax. Excess wax will aid the retention of water in the ear, and itself can cause infections under hot and sweaty conditions.
Middle ear infections may also be responsible for the sudden onset of severe ear pain in children. These are more serious than outer ear infections, and often occur at the same time as a cold or runny nose due to blockage of the tube that drains from the middle ear to the back of the nose (the Eustachian tube). Medical attention is essential for these infections, because if left untreated permanent damage to the ear may occur.
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