This is common for a wrestler. With repeated hits or rubbing of the ears on the mat, ears sustain blood clots, which cause the cartilage to die and form scar tissue, which resembles a cauliflower. It can be avoided by using proper head gear. Wrestlers have their ears hit frequently, as do rugby players and, to a lesser extent, boxers.
Cauliflower Ear: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments [ http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/cauliflower-ear-symptoms-causes-treatments ]
Image from WebMd
A cauliflower ear occurs when ear has been struck or suffered an impact injury.
Take your ear in your hand. See how flexible it is? A cauliflower ear becomes swollen and hard with blood. It becomes painful to the touch. This is why amateur boxers and wrestlers wear head gear.
Pro athletes are not as fortunate.
This is cauliflower ear.
and it is very painful, the reason it is associated with a wrestling is because when wrestlers don’t wear headgear they get slammed on their ears quite a bit which causes cauliflower ear.
It is trauma to the ear where the skin and cartilage are separated by force causing the body to send healing Sirus fluid to repair the area causing swelling. When the sirus fluid hardens the ear is now classified cauliflower ear.
It happens with repeated hits to the ear. It’s usually associated with wrestlers because some might not wear their head gear in practice.
In wrestling at the college level as well as in professional wrestling and also in adult AAU competition head gear is not worn nor is it mandatory like it is in high school wrestling or younger. Ears take a lot of punishment from hard head contact and forearms and bone on ear contact. That causes swelling and fluid build-up including blood which will settle in the ear and begin to harden since the ear has such poor circulation and is mainly cartilage. That in turn causes the ears to deform and cauliflower ear to develop.
Nope.
If you see blood in wrestling it’s almost all real. Apparently WWE has played with fake blood and WCW had something going on involving blood
Like most things in death’s door WCW, it didn’t go well.
Blood in wrestling has been a tool for a very long time, it sells the intensity of a match, it sells how much two guys hate each other that they don’t want the match stopped. No, they want to fight the guy.
It’s usually done with razors, they’ll hide them in wrist tape, finger tape and even trunks then when they’re done either it goes back or to a referee. It naturally has risks like if you cut too deep then you are putting yourself at risk of dying instead of just dealing with the regular effects of blood loss.
You can usually tell who did the most blading from one tell tale sign.
Razor blades will leave their mark especially if you’re having to bleed often.
From The legends to Deathmatch wrestlers.
They’ve spilled their blood for wrestling, for the fans and many more will do it in the future.
Just remember that, they know how to cut themselves open without dying. Imagine what happens if they want to hurt you.
1. Wear a wrestling or rugby headguard, for grappling. These guards are near enough identical as they are for the same purpose: to stop ear damage in wrestling (in rugby they wrestle hard in scrums and rucks, and get kicked in the head in a bundle). 2. Wear a boxing headguard if your head kick blocking is bad and you take hard headkicks across the side of the head. The hard foot instep or shin impacts can lead to a cauliflower ear. You see youngsters in Thailand with cauli ears because they get taught to kick before they get taught to block. 3. Or: carry syringes with you and have a friend drain the blood out before it sets hard. Cauli ears are caused by a haematoma of the outer ear and it cannot drain by itself; it is a bruise, which is a bleed below the skin, where the fluid eventually sets hard and distorts the ear.
So what you must do is stick a syringe into the swelling soon after the injury happens, and suck the fluid out. Where one side of the ear is hard cartilage, try going around the other side to get an easier entry - around the back of the ear for example. Now squirt that away and go again. And again. 4. At night you will probably have to wear compression of some kind - or the ear just refills with fluid. A popular method is to get a small, flat magnet of a disc shape about 1″ across, and a piece of steel the same size. Put a piece of soft bandage 2″ square on each side of the ear, then place the magnet and steel on top, each side of the ear. The magnet and steel stick together ‘through’ the ear, keeping them in place and compressing the ear. Tape over the discs and bandage, to keep them in place. Then place an elastic cover around the head, at ear level, so the ear/s are protected and the compression set-up is not dislodged while asleep. You can buy a sports headband, or make something suitable by taking a knit cap and cutting the top of the cap off so you’re left with a band. Many people find it simpler to wear a headguard.
I certainly don’t.
It’s painful. It’s ugly. It’s literally the cartilage in your ear dying because fluid builds up between it and the chondrium that delivers blood to the cartilage. Necrotic tissue inside the body is never healthy, and can become infected. Especially if you’re getting it drained in the locker room.
You have to wear head gear or it just gets worse. You have to drain it once or twice a day for the first several days, or longer, with a very large needle, like 14 guage, which is both painful, and almost impossible to do on your own with a mirror.
Then you have to sleep with binder clips attached to your ears. Try to explain that to that girl you just started getting serious with. Hopefully she also does BJJ and gets it.
If you let it get bad enough, it can burst like an overripe tomato, and then you’re in for some serious cosmetic surgury. They’ll have to grow a new ear on a rat’s back, and then you’re like 0.5% rat.
Good luck finding a doctor that has any idea what to do about cauliflower ear. I’m told that mattress-stitching the war between gauze pads really, really tightly, along with NSAID, antibiotics, and frequent drainage is the right way to go, but I don’t think they teach that in med school.
If you would like a badge of honor, many bjj schools offer a range of belts that indicate your level of skill and comittment. Tournaments are also known to give out medals, trophies, and even official rankings. Lastly, if you train with the gi, having the ugliest, most faded, worn-through, blood-stained gi in class is the best way to show your friends that you’re a cool dude. This is mine, and it’s barely acceptable in terms of being broken in. Consider dragging it behind your Nissan on the way back from class to accelerate wear.
Yes. Many advocate wearing headgear. Personally, I don’t like the headgear. It’s impeding and dams my ability to hear.
My solution is to simply drain the ear. If you have the stomach for it, you can easily do this yourself. There are plenty of videos online on how to do this. I have no medical qualifications, so take this as a disclaimer for what follows.
Here is my procedure. You will need a sterilizing alcohol (isopropyl works well), a hypodermic needle (25 gauge works well) and syringe, a mirror, good lighting, and cotton or a similar wiping material. First, thoroughly sterilize the ear by wiping down the entire surface with the alcohol. You will want to get the back of the ear as well as the front, to cover the unfortunate case where you penetrate the front and rear surfaces. Assuming the needle is fresh, attach it to the syringe and remove the cap. Gently insert the tip of the needle into the center of the swelling region of the ear at a 90 degree angle to the surface. You’ll want to sink the needle roughly 3 mm into the ear and you do not want to penetrate the rear surface. Holding the needle still, withdraw the plunger. The syringe will start to fill with blood and interstitial fluid. Keep pulling the plunger until the syringe stops filling. Gently withdraw the needle. Sterilize the exit point of the ear. The ear will bleed a little. Take pictures of the ear and needle and post them on social media to show how bad ass you are. The ear will be seen to immediately have returned to its previous size. You may have to repeat this a few times over successive days. It’s not nearly as bad as it might sound, but I did work briefly as a phlebotomist. Ice before bed also apparently helps, but I’ve managed to keep my ears looking good without it.
What if you don’t have a fresh needle? I have access to needles because I have a family member that I give injections to, and I reuse these. Now, needle reuse is strictly AMA- against medical advisement. This is because the average numb-nut can’t be trusted not to infect himself. But needles can be cleaned and sterilized. Treat the needle with respect. It is a delicate fine instrument. I clean mine with soap and hot water, followed by dowsing the outside surface with alcohol. I then flush the chamber and needle with alcohol several times. I do not wipe the surface of the needle with anything. This prevents “cotton fever”, which is unintended injection of cloth into the body, a common condition in addicts. Textiles in the body are a foreign substance and can cause a host of problems, not the least of which is severe and life-threatening infection.
Note that a needle becomes less sharp with each use. I will only use any one three times before permanently and safely disposing of it.
Now, go back up and reread the part where I state that I have no medical bonafides. I believe that what I describe can be done safely if intelligence and diligence are practiced, but you are on your own.
