So I've just about bought the farm...err, pharmacy, rather

This is getting ridiculous! I must've purchased a different product for each symptom- which is to say, I'm up to five, and considering a couple others. That's not normal, is it? I generally pride myself on not being a hypochondriac, and take meds only when I really need them (i.e. no antibiotics unless I and/or the doc is confident that it's bacterial) but the fact that this has been going on in one form or another for almost a week is undoubtedly a bit disconcerting. Especially the earache and the [definitely connected] swollen, sore throat. After poking around on webMD (again, a first), it might be inflammation of the eustachian tube which is causing all the pressure. One solution to that involves taking some long, pipe-cleaner like device and inserting it into your ear at the proper angle to help manually unblock the tube. While I've seen these stick-like things at the pharmacy, and the pharmacist even recommended it, I feel a little uncertain about sticking a long pipe down my own ear. It's something I'd rather have a professional (doctor, nurse, anyone who's particularly savvy on ear care,etc) perform such a deed if at all possible. When I asked people about what's involved in setting up an appointment to have a doctor look at my ear, they started discussing what was available at the local hospital. Knock on wood, I'm not quite there yet ;-) And paying a private practice out of pocket here is still a drop in the bucket compared to American medical costs. For now I might try asking at the thorn tree forums if anyone has advice about clinics in Irkutsk.
Granted, what much of my online poking about also said is that most of these ailments will clear up on their own if you're willing to wait it out (a few had doomsday taunts about not getting help ASAP, but they were greatly outnumbered by the former). So it's likely I'll just do that. Being sick is neither fun, nor practical, but I'm not sure what else to do, really.
Then there's another thing- apparently you can get antibiotics here without a prescription, so I could theoretically try them just to see if what I've got is, in fact, bacterial, rather than viral, and if it helps. In a weird way, that almost runs against my ethics- putting my immediate comfort ahead of the future of effective medicine for humanity...okay, maybe that's a little strong, but I still feel like our general overuse of antibiotics to treat viral illnesses is ultimately weakening their effectiveness when actually needed (the whole fear of adaptive super-bacteria that we can't control argument, suffice it to say).
Well, I might just have to take a nap for a bit, spittoon by my bed. Cheers!