7 Months After Surgery and Have Dried and Fresh Spots of Blood

I cleaned my ears every couple weeks or so, and every now and then there would be dried blood on the Q-tip.

Today I cleaned them and there was dried and fresh blood on the Q-tip in my bad ear. How is this possible 7 months after the surgery. Is it still healing? Is it bad or what.

 

@Jake007, you better get that checked out asap. Blood after 7 months doesn't make sense. I guess you must have been bleeding little bit before and dry blood was stuck in ear canal .
Best wishes ,
Sean

 

It's bad, but now there is hope that when they finally get your ear to heal, your T would get better...

 

I won't be going back to the same ent who did my surgery. I'm definitely going somewhere else. I don't even want to go at all.

 

Makes sense.

 

@glynis @GregCA Do you guys have any input on this please.

 

I am so sorry to hear that. I would definetly see a doctor. Even just your general doctor if you cannot get into an ENT soon.

Is it possible it's wax and not blood? My daughter had a bad ear infection. What I thought was dried blood was very orange/red tinted wax.

And this is really gross so I'm sorry for asking, but is it dark red or light pink blood? I ask because dark is typically old blood and pink suggests new, like cleaning irritated it and caused bleeding.

 

I've had pink, dark, and plain fresh colored. Over the past 7 months it was a mixture of pink and dark. But tonight it was fresh. How can it bleed for that long. I'm not kidding.

 

I'm really sorry. I try to stay pretty positive, but that would concern me. In the first few months after surgery, I do not think it would be that usual. New blood now? That seems very odd.

Is it both ears or one more than the other?

 

Right ear is good, left not so good. I try to stay positive too. But there seems to be no end to this.

 

Keep us posted. Really hope you get some answers. Like I said, even just check with your general doctor. Maybe they will see something.

 

I've had it checked many times over this time period. Nobody has said anything that something was wrong.

 

See a doctor, but it may be a clotting problem from surgery. If your ear hurts, which you probably would have mentioned, would point to an infection. Symptom checker has a list of 24 possibilities, but by far, the most common is a clot or clotting problem. Often a nasal spray to help clot is given for 4 -5 days. Don't do any heavy lifting, but do see a doctor.

 

Clearly you shouldn't be bleeding from surgery anymore, so something else may be happening and the only way to see that is with an otoscope. If it's bleeding behind the ear drum then you shouldn't be getting a discharge in the ear canal, unless you have a hole in the drum.

I bought an otoscope for my home and find it very useful (we spotted many ear infections in my daughter's ears right when they started, so it helped us fight it when it was still early). My wife used to look into my ear after my surgery too to check if everything looked ok. Now we use it mostly on my daughter, to check how her tubes are doing. Last Thursday we found something suspicious, and sure enough, when we went to the doc the following day, she had an infection. All of this to say that if you are comfortable handling an otoscope (you have to be careful as you can easily damage the ear drum), it can be an invaluable tool to have at home. Be prepared to be sneered at when you tell that to your doctors as many of them assume we're all sheep who shouldn't get educated on medicine. But really, looking at an ear drum takes a bit of practice but is doable for everyone.

Go get it checked by an ENT. It could be many things, but a quick visual should be able to give you a reasonable answer.

Good luck. Ear problems suck.

 

Hi @Jake,
When you had your opperation the drum gets stitched but when stitch the outer ear the ear canal is left to heel itself with packing in.
It can take a while for the scab to come off and also can bleed if knock the scabs off as are quite deep.
Always worth asking your doctor look down your ear to see if it's healing well.
Love glynis x

 

It's been checked many times, just last Thursday I had to renew my med card and a doctor looked at it and said nothing. So I came to you fine people on this forum for answers.

 

Hi Jake,

I had mastoid surgery as well 9 months ago and I didn't have any blood coming out from my ear canal after the first month. I don't believe it is dry or old blood because your doctor should have cleaned in your follow ups after the surgery. I will go to see and specialist to have a look at it. As Greg said, an specialist has to use an otoscope to see what it is. Hopefully, it was just a piece of blood mixed with some wax. However, my main recommendation is not to clean your bad ear yourself with anything. As we had cholesteatoma, we can easily have another infection that can affect tinnitus. So better not clean it yourself.

Luis