Children get lots of ear infections. I know I used to as a young kid, and in general I've seen several people come in complaining of that lately. I never thought about it until a few weeks ago, but I realized that at "some" point I'd more or less stopped getting ear infections entirely. Why was that?
It turns out that children have smaller Eustachian tubes (little tubes linking the pharynx to the middle ear) in their ears than adults, and that the tubes are more level than in adults as well. These conditions combine to make it hard for fluid to drain from a child's ear - especially when the tube is partially filled with mucus or another substance. This creates an ideal condition for bacteria to be trapped, starting a middle ear infection (otitis media).
This isn't actually the first thing I've learned from my job, but it's the first thing that hit me as ::Oh! So that's why that happened!:: I think I'll try to put down future stuff on here occasionally that I find interesting. Especially since there's not too much else I can go on about without violating patient privacy laws or simply getting painfully repetitive.
