Surfer's Ear

Ran into Robbie Snyder at the grocery store today. We both were buying cheap chicken. We were sharing physical ailment stories. Yeah, during winter it gets to this out here. Thirty years ago there was no place to run into each other (except in the water or on the job)let alone buy cheap chicken.

He asked me if I had ever had surfer's ear. You know where you get calcium deposits that build up boney spurs in the ear canal and eventually close it off completely in severe cases. Evidently this is caused when your ears don't drain properly. I told him I have only had swimmer's ear off and on over the years when I surf a lot and don't do such a good job of drying out my ears.

Anyway, he's had a severe case of surfer's ear for many years with his ears getting progressively worse over time. His suffering featured weekly earaches especially when he was in the water a lot. He said he finally decided to turn himself in and let a doctor look at it. He was facing a medieval sounding surgical procedure where they basically put your head in a vice and drill out the deposits built up over the years. Sound medieval enough? Plus it costs about $8 grand. Knowing Robbie, I'm sure he wasn't making this up. Really.

So he was telling his son, Noah, about his plight. Noah mentioned an Australian product called Surfer's Ear. Twenty bucks for a small bottle of liquid you apply to "the affected areas", I guess daily, and it lasts about a month and a half. So Robbie looked it up on the internet, ordered himself a bottle and...voila, surfer's ear gone. For you sufferers out there---just thought you might want to know.