I have the same symptoms where its not just on ears. It also goes onto my arms and seems to be getting worse and more frequent. It also seems more often in the winter/spring for me. I live in AZ so I might just think its the heat but very often people tell me that im getting a sunburn but I can tell that its just the heat or something and that it will go away eventually (not a sunburn). I dont know if thats normal to seem to have a sunburn just from heat. I wrote more above. I have kept a small log of the symptoms as they develop, but I havent written any times because its so frequent. I have never been to that mountain or any where near it though. Im willing to help anyway I can to figure out what this is.
I developed this "red ear syndrome" about 6 years ago, a month or so after returning from a mountain climbing trip to Mt.Rainier and Mt.Baker in August. It began as a hot, flushed, burning sensation on the left side of my face and forearm as I was driving home form work about 3-4pm. I thought it was just the sun shining through my car window. Next it would occur in the afternoon when I was at the gym and it was then that I noticed in the mirror how red my ear was. I am a nurse anesthetist so I immediately began to record my symptoms and when they occurred and I was also able to measure that the local skin temperature does increase when the flushing begins suggesting that this is some sort of neurovascular syndrome. I asked several surgeons about it and no one had a clue. I saw my Interal Med. MD who ran every test known to man. Then I saw a neurologist and a rhuematologist, both of which had no clue what this might be or any suggestions. The frequency of occurance and the intensity of my symptoms progressed over about 6 months to include burning along my left lateral thigh, calf and the sole of my foot. Eventually it spread to the right side but the flushing/ burning occurs only on one side at a time and only rarely on the right side. I can no longer wear socks or a hat because they are always burning to some degree and I feel as if I am overheating and might faint. The burning does not follow any nerve dermatone zones and does not appear to be linked to stress levels, alcohol intake, weather, but it does seem to occur more in the fall/winter for me and in the afternoon or night hours. But I live in SC so it might just be so hot that I don't actually notice the burning as much during the warmer months. After about a year my symptoms and flushing episodes sort of leveled off and have been stable ever since. The scary part is that I returned to Mt. Baker and Rainier the next fall with some friends and about a month after our return my climbing partner (Mark) and another friend (Pat) developed the same syndrome!!!!! We were all negative for Lyme's disease (which was every MD's 1st bet) Sojourns, Relapsing Polychondritis, fibromyalgia, carcinoid syndrome, an assortment of autoimmune disorders. You name it, we all got tested and were negative plus we are all pretty much healthy otherwise. Pat and I work at the same hopital but the mountain trips are the only common link that the 3 of us share. We all had mild flu like symptoms after we summited and then developed knee joint pain and then the flushing started. Now we all have very dry mucus membranes, just in the nose and have nose bleeds. Our MD's settled on either a chemical or biological toxic exposure (perhaps from melting snow for water) that produced some sort of neurological damage that also involves the vascular system and may involves the sympathetic nervous sytem. But if any of you out there have any thing similar to what we have then the Mountain trips can not be the causal link. Some one needs to start compiling a data base of symptoms and the onset and patterns of occurance. Pat (also a nurse with a PhD in Public Health) and I might be interested in developing a web site that would have persons with this syndrome complete a questionaire/assessment tool to be used to gather data and look for a common link. We are trying to pitch this idea to our Internal Med. Docs and maybe the local university public health department. It would be great to include a university that has a program in epideminology. If anybody out there has symptoms similar to ours or if you are interested in helping us try to launch this "data collection" project, please reply. Thanks
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I have the same symptoms where its not just on ears. It also goes onto my arms and seems to be getting worse and more frequent. It also seems more often in the winter/spring for me. I live in AZ so I might just think its the heat but very often people tell me that im getting a sunburn but I can tell that its just the heat or something and that it will go away eventually (not a sunburn). I dont know if thats normal to seem to have a sunburn just from heat. I wrote more above. I have kept a small log of the symptoms as they develop, but I havent written any times because its so frequent. I have never been to that mountain or any where near it though. Im willing to help anyway I can to figure out what this is.
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I developed this "red ear syndrome" about 6 years ago, a month or so after returning from a mountain climbing trip to Mt.Rainier and Mt.Baker in August. It began as a hot, flushed, burning sensation on the left side of my face and forearm as I was driving home form work about 3-4pm. I thought it was just the sun shining through my car window. Next it would occur in the afternoon when I was at the gym and it was then that I noticed in the mirror how red my ear was. I am a nurse anesthetist so I immediately began to record my symptoms and when they occurred and I was also able to measure that the local skin temperature does increase when the flushing begins suggesting that this is some sort of neurovascular syndrome. I asked several surgeons about it and no one had a clue. I saw my Interal Med. MD who ran every test known to man. Then I saw a neurologist and a rhuematologist, both of which had no clue what this might be or any suggestions. The frequency of occurance and the intensity of my symptoms progressed over about 6 months to include burning along my left lateral thigh, calf and the sole of my foot. Eventually it spread to the right side but the flushing/ burning occurs only on one side at a time and only rarely on the right side. I can no longer wear socks or a hat because they are always burning to some degree and I feel as if I am overheating and might faint. The burning does not follow any nerve dermatone zones and does not appear to be linked to stress levels, alcohol intake, weather, but it does seem to occur more in the fall/winter for me and in the afternoon or night hours. But I live in SC so it might just be so hot that I don't actually notice the burning as much during the warmer months. After about a year my symptoms and flushing episodes sort of leveled off and have been stable ever since. The scary part is that I returned to Mt. Baker and Rainier the next fall with some friends and about a month after our return my climbing partner (Mark) and another friend (Pat) developed the same syndrome!!!!! We were all negative for Lyme's disease (which was every MD's 1st bet) Sojourns, Relapsing Polychondritis, fibromyalgia, carcinoid syndrome, an assortment of autoimmune disorders. You name it, we all got tested and were negative plus we are all pretty much healthy otherwise. Pat and I work at the same hopital but the mountain trips are the only common link that the 3 of us share. We all had mild flu like symptoms after we summited and then developed knee joint pain and then the flushing started. Now we all have very dry mucus membranes, just in the nose and have nose bleeds. Our MD's settled on either a chemical or biological toxic exposure (perhaps from melting snow for water) that produced some sort of neurological damage that also involves the vascular system and may involves the sympathetic nervous sytem. But if any of you out there have any thing similar to what we have then the Mountain trips can not be the causal link. Some one needs to start compiling a data base of symptoms and the onset and patterns of occurance. Pat (also a nurse with a PhD in Public Health) and I might be interested in developing a web site that would have persons with this syndrome complete a questionaire/assessment tool to be used to gather data and look for a common link. We are trying to pitch this idea to our Internal Med. Docs and maybe the local university public health department. It would be great to include a university that has a program in epideminology. If anybody out there has symptoms similar to ours or if you are interested in helping us try to launch this "data collection" project, please reply. Thanks