What's going on with my inflamed gland?

Post date: 2021-06-14 13:14:16

I have a weird inflamed gland (I think?) and am not sure what to do.

It feels silly to use a question for this because obviously you all are not my doctor but I'm not sure of the next steps. Here's the situation.

Several nights ago I noticed a little painful lump just in front of my ear -- possibly a gland, possibly a bite (because there are a few bumps there too, which might be bites, but they could be zits too). It was a lot more painful than swollen glands normally are. I didn't sleep well and also had restless legs, which I haven't had in years.

The next day it was even worse and I went to the hospital. They said it was an infection and gave me antibiotics.

Despite the 1.5 days of antibiotics, it's now even worse. The gland (or whatever) is swollen to the point that it's clearly visible when you look at me. Half my face is swollen up. I slept very badly last night between the pain of it and very bad restless legs. It's also this weird mix of both painful and really itchy. Like, it hurts a lot, but it itches a lot too.

Possibly relevant things:
- Nothing else is wrong. No ear or throat or tooth infection (they looked at all of these at the hospital). No fever. No other glands or anything swollen.
- I got the AZ vaccine ~10 days ago. Probably irrelevant but who knows
- No medication much touches the pain or the swelling. Heat brings it down a very tiny bit.
- The restless legs is really noticeable and bad and I'm grumpy and very tired

At what point do I go to the hospital again? What do I say or ask for? I would have expected the antibiotics to start working by now, at least enough to not make things worse. But maybe I'm wrong? I don't actually even know if this is a gland or bite or something else. Ideas? This is super frustrating and it's been a really difficult week for other reasons and am probably not thinking clearly about it.

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