Have a doctor check your ears for exostoses/surfer’s ear

[isobars]

I've never heard or read anything like that [correction: I had forgotten about the facial nerve threat]. The downside risks of avoiding the surgery without completely avoiding all further exposure to any cool environment include likely deafness and chronic awful infections hard to access via local treatment, with lower but still real threat of that infection spreading. The downside risk to the surgery is the very rare incidence of operator error nicking the eardrum or an anesthesia reaction. ENT surgeons do much tougher and riskier operations literally every day. Both the surgeons I consulted as well as the medical literature I read said that at 80%, and/or if the bumps are trapping water, we have a choice: Cut/chisel at a convenient time now while the existoses are accessible through the ear canal and comparatively easy to remove, or open up that side of the skull later in a (likely) mid-season emergency.

I want to add that Dr. Hetzler in Palo Alto freely and promptly exchanged very informative emails with me, out of the blue. I was impressed with that.

[jp5]

From the good Doctor himself.

[LeeD]

Truck drivers get surfer's ear also. From driving around with window lowered, and wind blows past the ears.
It never really heals, but it gets better, swelling shrinking somewhat, over time and less exposure.

[isobars]

Both are possible, but even an eardrum cut, once healed, sometimes enhances hearing, one ENT told me. I had forgotten about the facial nerve risk; the surgeon can evaluate that risk real time once he gets good access behind the existoses. I had several existoses, and only after getting too deep into the ear canal for a conscious patient could he tell that only one was a significant short or long term problem and it was amenable to the chisel. The others would never become problematic.

I told my surgeon to err on the side of safety rather than seeking a perfect ear canal, emphasizing to the point it became a standing (but unfunny) joke that 100% of my hearing is in his hands today (my other inner ear was excised 20 years ago).

BTW, removing that other inner ear (labyrinth) had zero impact on its long-standing 24/7 tinnitus. T is quite commonly founded in the brain; if it's in the ear or its nerve it might be fixable.

You have little to lose and perhaps much to gain by contacting Dr. Hetzler before your ear canal becomes much harder to fix. He was all information and zero pressure. He, the surgeon I used, and the literature told me existoses don't shrink; they are bone, after all. Maybe inflamed tissue could abate; the doc should be able to evaluate that prospect.