Otitis media is an inflammatory lesion involving all or part of the middle ear (including the eustachian tube, tympanic cavity, sinus, and mastoid airspace), and most of them are nonspecific inflammations, especially in children. Non-suppurative otitis media includes secretory otitis media and pneumatic otitis media; suppurative otitis media is acute and chronic, and specific inflammation is rare, such as tuberculous otitis media.
Symptoms: The most common symptoms of otitis media are stuffy feeling in the ear, hearing loss and tinnitus. It often occurs after a cold, or unconsciously. Sometimes head position changes can improve hearing, and there is self-hearing enhancement. Some patients have mild ear pain.
1. Hearing loss: Hearing loss and self-hearing enhancement. When the head is tilted forward or to the healthy side, the hearing can be temporarily improved because the fluid leaves the auditory chain (dislocation hearing improvement). When the fluid is viscous, hearing may not change with the change of position.
2. Ear pain: In acute cases, there may be vague ear pain, which is often the first symptom of the patient, and it may be persistent or throbbing. In chronic cases, the ear pain is not obvious. The disease is often accompanied by a feeling of occlusion or stuffiness in the ear, which can be temporarily relieved by pressing the ear screen.
3. Tinnitus: It is mostly low-pitched and intermittent, such as “crackling”, buzzing and running water sounds. When the head moves or yawns, the sound of air passing through water can appear in the ear, and sometimes it will appear again with interruptions.
Dangers: Acute suppurative otitis media mostly turns into chronic otitis media if the treatment is not timely and thorough. In addition, if chronic rhinitis, sinusitis and chronic tonsillitis are present, bacteria may repeatedly invade the middle ear cavity and lurk down in the middle ear leading to chronic otitis media. Chronic otitis media is divided into three types according to the duration and severity of the disease: simple, ulcerative and cholesteatoma. Their common manifestation is pus flowing in the ear, which is recurrent. Sometimes the pus is mixed with bloody secretions. In addition, there is tinnitus and hearing loss, and if complications occur, there is also tinnitus and vertigo and headache.
The characteristics of otitis media in the elderly are
1. Atypical symptoms: Lack of clinical manifestations such as ear pain and pus flowing from the external ear canal, and mostly hearing loss as the main manifestation. This condition is easily mistaken for physiological decompensation in the elderly, or mistaken for complications of cerebral arteriosclerosis or hypertension, thus delaying treatment.
2.Incognito: Some elderly patients show insidious development until deafness, tinnitus, or intracranial complications are detected.
3. Long course of disease: It can often last for more than 10 years, with low clinical cure rate and easy recurrence, resulting in varying degrees of hearing loss.
4. Complications: The older the age and the longer the course of the disease, the more complications there are, among which the incidence of labyrinthitis is the highest and the main symptom is tinnitus; followed by intracranial infection, which can cause brain abscess and endanger life.
This shows that otitis media in the elderly is not easily detected early, has a high misdiagnosis rate, a low cure rate, and has many complications and hazards.
When elderly people experience hearing loss, or when gray or yellow pus flows out from time to time, they should go to the ENT department of the hospital for examination in time to detect the lesion early and treat it in time to prevent intracranial and extracranial complications.
Prevention
1, first of all, prevention of secretory otitis media in life must pay attention to their oral hygiene health. You should pay attention to rinsing your mouth after eating, and bring a good hygiene mask when you go out. This can help us reduce the garbage inside the mouth and prevent the growth of bacteria that can cause inflammation of the throat.
2, Secondly, to prevent secretory otitis media we can drink a glass of honey water every morning. This is because honey water is not only antiseptic and anti-inflammatory, but also helps us to improve our personal body resistance, which can well prevent us from getting a cold, and will avoid the cold from triggering otitis media.
3, finally, the prevention of secretory otitis media also pay special attention to blowing the nose when not forceful blowing, and do not press the two nostrils at the same time blowing the nose, you can use cross unilateral blowing the nose, which can be good to remove the excrement inside the nasal cavity, but also to help us see the pressure of the nasal cavity, to protect our eustachian tube.
Treatment.
1, active treatment of upper respiratory tract focal diseases: such as chronic sinusitis, chronic tonsillitis.
2, drug treatment: simple type to local medication: available antibiotic aqueous solution or antibiotics and steroid hormone drug mixture, such as 0.25% chloramphenicol solution, chloramphenicol cortisone solution, oxyfloxacin ear drops can treat otitis media and otitis externa, etc.
3. Precautions for local medication: Clean the pus in the external ear canal and middle ear cavity before medication is administered, using 3% hydrogen peroxide or boric acid water to clean it, and then swab it with a cotton swab or use a suction device to suck out the pus before medication is administered. When the amount of pus is large, use water, and when the amount is small, use boric acid alcohol.
4. If a large perforation of the tympanic membrane affects hearing, tympanic membrane repair or tympanoplasty is feasible about 2 months after dry ear.
5.For osteoid otitis media with clear drainage, local medication is the mainstay, but attention should be paid to regular review. For those with poor drainage or suspected complications and cholesteatoma otitis media, modified mastoid radical surgery or mastoid radical surgery should be performed early to completely remove the lesion and prevent complications.
6. External treatment with Chinese medicine: red cotton powder. Musk, alum, dried cochineal, furnace glycerin, tablet brain and other valuable local herbs.
Precautions
In life we have to eat more nutrients, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, replenish the body needs vitamins, improve their own resistance, if the cold must be timely and active treatment of colds, to avoid the occurrence of throat infection.