Doh! Got hit by a cold last week, and then woke up Friday morning with a muffled right ear, again!
One week before my Japanese exam which includes a listening section. Bloody marvellous.

I don’t know if anyone has been reading this since last year, when I had my first encounter with the Japanese torture room ear, nose and throat clinic but I really didn’t want to go through that again.

Well we found a different clinic and got up early Saturday morning and headed there in the cold.

First impressions…much better! It wasn’t packed to the rafters with a conveyor belt system past the doctor, where he clamped your nose and stuck something in it, before moving on to the next one, so that was promising.

Didn’t have to wait for long before being called in (by my middle name – Japanese officials never know what to call me – as I have to write all my 3 names down on the form to match my health insurance card, so they don’t know which is which). I digress…I was called in, and then I saw it…the chair, the pipes, the chair with the nurse handing the doctor clamps and long stick things to stick up peoples noses.

I sat down and before I knew it, the nurse had given him a clamp and my nostril was clamped open and he was squirting stuff up there and rummaging around with the worlds longest nasal rummaging tool.

I managed to fight the urge to run screaming or punch him, and then it was over. Except then he wanted to stick something down my throat, which made me retch just as he pulled it out. Oh, he also put a metal cone in my ear and rummaged around that with a metal stick.

But the best bit was the Star Trek vibrating tool! The doctor put a metal disc on my head which vibrated. I had to tell him where it was vibrating (in my head – left, centre, or right). That was kinda fun.

Turns out I have an ear infection, but he wanted to find out where it came from (me, I think it was the cold…but…), so I had to undergo a range of amusing tests.

First, I had to sit in front of an old machine and put two rubber tubes in my nose while vapour was pumped in.

Next, the hearing test, in the small booth with the humming noise.
And then my favourite…the light bulb treatment! I had to hold a lightbulb close to each ear for about 2 minutes.

Finally another vapour tube for my throat.

Wow.

I left with 7 different kinds of medicine

However, I love that doctor! After about 2 days my hearing came back and my cold has now gone None of that 6 weeks of pain last time resulting in a man cutting open my ear drum! >:-[

I can hear again and am (not) ready for the JLPT test next week. Oh here's a picture of the university the test is being held at in Nishinomiya.

University in Nishinomiya

Related posts:

1. Being Ill in Japan
2. Issues with the old ear

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Post tags: Being Ill, Ear Nose and Throat Clinic, Japanese hospitals

Just come back from my 5th visit to the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, and it’s finally beginning to show signs of improvement.

First of all, it’s a scary place! Very crowded (mainly full of young kids), one doctor and about 10 nurses helping him. You all queue up at the door and he checks you out in a big room, so everyone stares at you (especially when you’re a foreigner – felt very much on show).

But the scary thing was, the place and equipment was soooo old! Like some mixture of a Victorian hospital and a torture chamber! I kept expecting the doors to be suddenly locked and a tv wheeled out and the guy from Saw appearing telling me I have to kill my way out. Lots of old metal tubes, cones and pointed things, and all around the edge the strangest medical equipment I’ve seen! One old lady was sitting mouth agape in front of a tube that was spewing out steam, an old guy was holding two large cone shaped things, which were plugged into the wall, against his ears, and someone else had two rubber tubes placed in their ears which was attached to some sort of pump that looked like a miniature oil pump!

All very odd. As I said, it’s an open room, with a couple of chairs next to the torture equipment, so you can see what the docs doing to the current patient. And unfortunately he was clamping the guys nose open and forcing a very long cotton bud down his nasal passage, then using a vacuum tube to suck stuff out. I felt sick just looking at it – the cotton bud was very long, and must have gone halfway into his brain! This seemed to be a popular treatment as the doc did this to nearly everyone that sat in the chair! I was about to bolt for the door.

Thankfully, he just wanted to stick the long probe down my ear and scrape about in their. That was unpleasant enough. He scribbled something on my medical report and I was herded by some nurses to a 200Watt lightbulb that I sat next to for 5 minutes (to kill infection apparently). Just seemed to give me a very pink ear.

Anyway, as I said, just came back from my 5th visit. On the last visit, he decided to cut a hole in my eardrum!

So I was given a local anaesthetic in the ear hole and then they plugged in a metal probe that was connected to some antiquated battery thing and my wrist.

Thankfully the anaesthetic worked so I didn’t feel him cut the tiny hole (1mm he said), but I did feel him vacuuming the liquid through the hole! Not nice. Shouldn’t complain though, he said he was going to do a baby’s ear later, and the baby couldn’t have the local anaesthetic as they were too young! Poor thing.

Oh, the previous visit I also had my hearing tested – had to sit in a small booth, with headphones and press a button when I heard some music at different pitches. That was fun.

Today I got to find out what the strange equipment (that I mentioned earlier) was all for. The cone shaped things that are plugged in, are basically mini 200watt heaters like I had earlier. The rubber tubes were bizarre though. They massage the ear to relieve pressure. The machine they’re hooked up too, creates a thumping noise, like you hear on submarine movies from the engines going at full speed ahead.

That was fun. But did that just for one minute (timed by egg timer of course!).

All told, and interesting if not particularly pleasant experience. Still can’t hear properly, but it is improving slowly.

The other thing that was odd…my name. I have to write it in katakana (actually my gf does), but they nearly always get it wrong. I was Bill Pullman in one clinic! How they got Bill from Jim I don’t know.

Hopefully pretty soon I won’t have to lipread my students anymore and will be able to find out if they are actually speaking English correctly!

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Post tags: Being Ill, Japanese hospitals

January’s not been a great month for us, Aki had a really bad cough for several weeks, which included a trip to the hospital in the early hours of the morning due to an asthma attack, and finally resulted in terrible muscle pains down her sie due to coughing so much and so hard

Then a couple of weeks ago I got a cold which led to a fever and possible tonsilitis (the doctor wasn’t sure, and didn’t speak English, so again we had to guess what was wrong). Tonsilitis (I’ve had that before and it felt similar) or an allergic reaction – the default diagnosis when you’ve no real idea.
So instead of being given amoxycillin, which I’m ususlly fed in England I got 6 different kinds of pills and a stick on patch! These were for: asthma, cough, pain, sputum (a word I’d not heard in ages), inflammation, fever and god knows what else!

Still 3 days later, the pain subsided, so something worked.

Then, I woke up at 3am Sunday morning in agony and deaf in my right ear. Seems I’d created an ear infection.
Again, had this before, about once a year in fact, and a dose of antibiotics usually clears it up…
Couldn’t get any sleep that night so first thing we were back off to the doctors. Unfortunately, GPs here specialise, so the guy from last week didn’t have the ear light gun, so couldn’t help me, told me to go to the
ear, nose and throat specialist down the road. Gave me a letter to give that guy (and charged me twenty quid for it!)…

Off we went to the otorhinolaryngologist (unbelievably one of the 3 English words the doctor knew! – I didn’t)…

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Post tags: Being Ill