This swollen and uncomfortable looking ear is from a staph infection of unknown origin. Ultimately it resulted in a week of hospitalization while on three simultaneous antibiotics to kill off the very serious infection. A thing to remember about stretched lobes is that they can act like “the canary in the mine shaft” for a lot of people &mdash if you’re getting a cold, your ears may get a little irritated first, and so on. Or in this case, be the rupture point for an infection (hopefully moddoctor will pop in and comment with something less medically amateur).