Ok, guys, first post. I'm not doing MMA, just started Krav Maga about a month ago. I'm actually a doctor, so I wanted to share my story but I am NOT dispensing medical advice. I'm not even sure what happened, maybe a forearm rub across my ear, but it started feeling tender over a few days. Then I noticed that it was starting to swell a little. I showed one of my buddies who's a dermatologist and he said to leave it alone, it was so slight, it should resolve on its own. Well, over the course of the next week, it just kept gradually worsening.
I went to the Urgent Care to see if they would drain it since I didn't want to practice medicine on myself. But they wouldn't do anything, just wanted to send me to ENT for the bolster. So I thought I'd give it a try. My wife's also a physician so I got some needles and syringes and had her drain it using sterile technique. All she got out was some serous (clear yellow) fluid, no blood. So I didn't have a hematoma, but a seroma. I tried to hold pressure on it for the rest of the day, but it had filled back up the next am. I was worried about it becoming permanent so I went to the ENT. He said the only way to really fix it was the cut/drain/bolster procedure.
So I had it done. The needle sticks to numb it stung, but once it was numb it was fine. They used this expanding foam that they use to pack noses instead of a roll of gauze like I've seen here. BUT, when the anesthetic wore off, HOLY COW did it hurt. That first night was absolutely excruciating. It felt like someone had a red hot stapler jamming through my ear and twisting it. I had to have him call in some Vicodin. That helped, but it was still very painful all week. I just got the stitches out today after 5 days. It's still burning/tingling a little, and I don't think it looks that much better than before. Perhaps it will look better tomorrow after some of the swelling goes down from removing the sutures. At least I hope so.
But I have to say, after all this, if this happens again, I think I would opt for draining it and finding some creative way to keep pressure on it. I really like the rare earth magnets idea. They come in lots of shapes and sizes and I bet I could fashion something that would keep pressure on it. This cut and bolster procedure just seems barbaric to me. If you're going to have it drained, obviously, you should have this done by a physician with sterile technique. And the ear doesn't get a lot of blood flow, so prophylactic antibiotics are a good idea to prevent infection. I cannot recommend the YouTube video of the guy sticking the lawyer's ear. That was some horrible "sterile" technique and an infection waiting to happen. And clearly if you have severe trauma to the ear with a massive hematoma, you should have a physician take care of that and likely the ENT will need to be involved.
I wear headgear now, and I'm the only one in my class. But that's ok. If it can happen with some fairly incidental contact, I'll take looking goofy over this experience ever again.
First day I noticed it:
Couple of days later:
After about a week:
right after the procedure:
And today, a few hours after getting stitches out: