Currently, I am suffering from piercing pains in my left ear. The pain started to bother me last Saturday. I booked to see my GP and got an appointment on Thursday. The pain went terribly bad Monday night and I ended up in Accident and Emergency in the Launceston General Hospital. Two doctors checked me and said I had an ear infection. They gave me some antibiotics and advised me to take painkiller to numb the pains. I was then discharged. However, the pains come and go and there was no sign of it getting better.
The GP appointment eventually came. My GP checked my ears, throat and other things. The ear channels looked fine, there were lumps around the neck and because of the pattern of the pains, she ruled out ear infection. She said it is neuropathic pain and I could stop the antibiotics cos' it is not going to do anything. She suspected the pains might be caused by shingles and told me to go back to the medical centre right away if rashes or blisters come up.
I don't think I have shingles 带状疱疹. There is nothing on my skin. I even asked Mark to check my scalp. I have been having this pain for a week. If I had shingles, the rashes or blisters should have surfaced.
This morning the pain was a lot more manageable (without having to take painkiller) and I recalled one incident that has slipped my mind for years.
This was about 20 years ago in Hong Kong. I had a blocked nose and went to see a doctor. He prescribed a course of antibiotics. After one full course, the problem was still there and he prescribed a second course. After the second course, I still had blocked nose and started to have ear pains. He then said I had an ear infection. I asked him I did not have an ear infection to start with; how come after two courses of antibiotics I would have an ear infection? He dismissed me by saying he was going to prescribe something very strong and it will kill anything.
I called a German doctor whom I respect a lot. Dr Roland Heber was husband of my German tutor in university. He has a medical degree in Germany, went to Taiwan to study Chinese language and Chinese medicine. In Hong Kong, he had his own private practice practising Chinese medicine. He is so good that his practice always had a long waiting list of weeks and sometimes months. He told me if I called him directly, he would see me right away cutting the waiting time. I was reluctant to exploit this privilege. However, the pain was so bad that I jumped the queue. He checked my ears and said there was no infection. There was another German doctor in his practice visiting him at that time. The other doctor also checked and confirmed there was nothing wrong in the ears. Dr Heber read my pulse and said I was too "heated up" in my lungs and liver. All I needed was to go to a Chinese emporium to get some over the counter (otc) Chinese medicine which cost me A$2 a bottle to restore the heat balance in the body. That worked. Since then, I always had a few bottles of the otc herbal medicine at home in Hong Kong. Whenever, I had mucous building up, I took that drug and I would be fine.
Since moving to Australia, this drug is no longer in stock at home. In addition, getting old, the body constitution tends to skew towards the "cold" side. Thus, I completely forgot this incident.
I saw a Chinese medicine practitioner today (Dr Yun NIU, highly recommended). What I need is 龍胆潟肝丸 (the same herbal medicine Dr Heber told me to buy), and I have got a bottle this afternoon.
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