Tuesday, March 04, 2008
I found something on the hole above my ear.
It's call Preauricular Pits.
Quote from http://www.doctorhoffman.com/xpit.htmPits are present at birth; they form during early fetal development. In the 5th to 6th week post-conception, 6 tiny lumps of tissue begin merging, and by the 20th fetal week, these lumps have formed the external ear. If this process is something less than perfect, any number of external ear anomalies may result. Preauricular pits are (arguably) one of the milder anomalies that may result from imperfect external ear development. They are skin-lined and are typically less than one inch in depth.
Pits are significant for two reasons. First, pits can become infected. An infected pit usually presents as a soft or hard swelling at the helical root; press on the swollen area, and a drop of pus will emerge from the pit. This can be treated with antibiotics, of course, but if the pit keeps getting infected you would probably want to have it surgically removed. This can be done under local anesthesia. You must make sure that your surgeon is familiar with pits. Simply excising the outer (visible) portion of the pit is inadequate; the surgeon must excise the entire pit. An ear, nose and throat surgeon would be the best choice for this procedure, since we all have experience with pits.
Pits are also significant because they can be an indicator for other ear problems. In other words, there is a higher-than-chance association of pits with other (less visible) ear anomalies. These "deeper" anomalies are important because they usually impair hearing to some degree. You may or may not have noticed such a hearing loss; the loss may be mild, and may easily have gone unnoticed on school audiograms.
