morgannels blog

Sometime this afternoon, once my ear doctor has completed his day’s surgeries, I find out what’s next for my ear after Monday’s setback. For a day or two after Monday’s visit, the ear felt better, but yesterday evening, it started to feel like it did before Monday’s visit. Today, it doesn’t feel that bad, and,… — read more

It doesn’t look like I’ll be in swimming in Provincetown next week. My ear started bothering me this morning. It felt itchy and warm, and even started to hurt in the ear canal. The ear itself, especially around the edges and the lobe, turned fairly bright red. So I got an immediate appointment with the… — read more

I’ve started wearing my new mouthguard, and it’s making a big difference. I think it’s helping with the TMJ disorder, though I don’t know for sure, but much more obviously, it’s helping me to sleep. I’m not certain how to explain this, but my best guess is that I’ve apparently been holding my jaw clenched… — read more

I saw my dentist this morning, and he confirmed the ear doctor’s suspicion that I’m suffering from TMJ disorder in the left joint of my jaw. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly severe case. He’s going to start by giving me a soft mouthguard to wear when I sleep, and if all goes well,… — read more

I had my weekly visit to the ear doctor this morning, and the tissue continues to heal as it should. There’s an area totaling about twenty to twenty-five percent of the replaced tissue that needs to finish growing in, and that’s proceeding correctly. There’s no granulation tissue or mucosa, so unless something goes wrong (which… — read more

I saw the ear doctor this morning for a regularly scheduled follow up (as opposed to Monday morning’s panic visit), and things still look good. We’re not entirely sure what happened over the weekend. The pain, pressure, and heat I felt seem to have been related to the occasional TMJ issue on that side, which… — read more

I got an appointment with my ear doctor first thing this morning. At 8:45, he was looking in my ear and telling me everything looks perfect. He said that it’s possible that two days of drops may have completely corrected whatever went wrong Friday night, though that’s unlikely. I don’t know if it’s more or… — read more

I got up a little before six this morning to go to the bathroom, and as I was standing there, I absently touched my left ear, discovering there the telltale crust of resurgent mucosa in my ear “weeping” (as the doctors put it) serum. This indicates that last week’s plan of leaving things to heal… — read more