All of DAPuckett's Comments + Replies

It is persistent (or at least has persisted for about 20 years), is just the one ear (because that was what was exposed), and could perhaps be differentiated from blunt trauma cases in that the swelling only affects the helix and the directionality is different.  How to explain the last part?  If you imagine an axis going down your ear canal, with blunt trauma the swelling is generally parallel to that axis (the ear is made thicker) while with my ear it's along a radius perpendicular to that axis (the ear is made taller).

1Cole Wyeth
Thanks! Good to know.

The conditional increase in probability for "participated in combat sports or something non-surprisingly adjacent" based on "has cauliflower ear" may not be anywhere near as large as you think.  Even just among the people reading this post, you've got someone with a cauliflower ear (me) who got it by something completely unrelated (the ear freezing solid).  How can you tell if the sample you used to derive your explanation is biased?  From the post, it sounds like you're into MMA more than is the average for the population.  I would exp... (read more)

1Cole Wyeth
Useful to have a counterexample. No, I don't think many other things in my life correlate with MMA. There are no other visual cues I would consider reliable. If it's not too personal, is your condition persistent? Does it include both ears? And does it look similar to what you might see on UFC fighters?