Symptoms, Causes, Treatments, and Prevention

Earaches usually occur in children, but they can also occur in adults. Injury, infection, irritation in the ear, or referred pain may cause earaches.

An earache may affect one or both of your ears. But most of the time, it’s in one ear. It may be constant or come and go, and the pain may be dull, sharp, or burning.

If you have an ear infection, you may also get a fever, and temporary hearing loss may occur. Young children who have ear infections tend to be fussy and irritable. They may also tug or rub their ears.

Read on for other symptoms, causes, treatments, and more.

Earaches can develop from ear infections or injury. Symptoms in adults include:

• ear pain
• impaired hearing
• fluid drainage from ear

Children can typically show additional symptoms, such as:

• ear pain
• muffled hearing or difficulty responding to sounds
• fever
• sense of fullness in the ear
• difficulty sleeping
• tugging or pulling at the ear
• crying or acting irritable more than usual
• headache
• loss of appetite
• loss of balance

Ear pain is felt somewhere other than the infection or injured site. For example, pain in the jaw or teeth may be felt in the ear.

Causes of earaches can include:

Ear infections

Ear infections are a common cause of earaches or ear pain. Ear infections can occur in the outer, middle, and inner ear.

Outer ear infection can be caused by swimming, wearing hearing aids or headphones that damage the skin inside the ear canal, or putting cotton swabs or fingers in the ear canal.

Skin in the ear canal that gets scratched or irritated can lead to infection. Water softens the skin in the ear canal, which can create a breeding ground for bacteria.

Middle ear infection can be caused by infections that stem from a respiratory tract infection. Fluid buildup behind the ear drums caused by these infections can breed bacteria.

Labyrinthitis is an inner ear disorder that’s sometimes caused by viral or bacterial infections from respiratory illnesses.

Other common causes of earaches

• change in pressure, such as when flying on a plane
• earwax buildup
• a foreign object in the ear
• strep throat
• sinus infection
• shampoo or water trapped in the ear
• use of cotton swabs in the ear

Less common causes of earaches

• temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome
• perforated eardrum
• arthritis affecting the jaw
• infected tooth
• impacted tooth
• eczema in the ear canal
• trigeminal neuralgia (chronic facial nerve pain)

You can take several steps at home to reduce earache pain. Try these options to ease the ear pain:

• Apply a cold washcloth to the ear.
• Avoid getting the ear wet.
• Sit upright to help relieve ear pressure.
• Use over-the-counter (OTC) ear drops.
• Take OTC pain relievers.
• Chew gum to help relieve pressure.
• Feed an infant to help them relieve their pressure.

If you have an ear infection, your doctor will prescribe oral antibiotics or eardrops. In some cases, they’ll prescribe both.

Don’t stop taking the medication once your symptoms improve. It’s important that you finish your entire prescription to ensure that the infection will clear up completely.

If a buildup of wax is causing your ear pain, you may be given wax-softening eardrops. They may cause the wax to fall out on its own. Your doctor may also flush out the wax using a process called ear lavage, or they may use a suction device to remove the wax.

Your doctor will treat TMJ, sinus infections, and other causes of earaches directly to improve your ear pain.

If you or your child has a persistent fever of 104ºF (40 ºC) or higher, seek medical attention. For an infant, seek medical help immediately for a fever higher than 101ºF (38ºC). The Healthline FindCare tool can provide options in your area if you don’t already have a doctor.

You should also seek immediate medical attention if you have severe pain that stops suddenly. This could be a sign of the eardrum rupturing.

You should also watch for other symptoms. If any of the following symptoms appear, make an appointment with your doctor:

• severe ear pain
• dizziness
• bad headache
• swelling around the ear
• drooping of the facial muscles
• blood or pus draining from the ear

You should also make an appointment with your doctor if an earache gets worse or doesn’t improve in 24 to 48 hours.

You can book an appointment with a primary care doctor in your area using our Healthline FindCare tool.

Some earaches may be preventable. Try these preventive measures:

• Avoid smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Keep foreign objects out of the ear.
• Dry the ears after swimming or bathing.

Avoid allergy triggers, such as dust and pollen.

Read this article in Spanish.

Earache, No Infection (Adult)

Earaches can happen without an infection. They can occur when air and fluid build up behind the eardrum. They may cause a feeling of fullness and discomfort. They may also impair hearing. This is called otitis media with effusion (OME) or serous otitis media. It means there is fluid in the middle ear. It is not the same as acute otitis media, which is often from an infection.

OME can happen when you have a cold if congestion blocks the passage that drains the middle ear. This passage is called the eustachian tube. OME may also occur with nasal allergies or after a bacterial infection in the middle ear. Other causes are:

The pain or discomfort may come and go. You may hear clicking or popping sounds when you chew or swallow. You may feel that your balance is off. Or you may hear ringing in the ear.

It often takes from several weeks up to 3 months for the fluid to clear on its own. Oral pain relievers and ear drops help if there is pain. Decongestants and antihistamines sometimes help. Antibiotics don’t help since there is no infection. Your healthcare provider may give you a nasal spray to help reduce swelling in the nose and eustachian tube. This can allow the ear to drain.

If your OME doesn’t get better after 3 months, surgery may be used to drain the fluid. A small tube may also be put in the eardrum to help with drainage.

Because the middle ear fluid can become infected, watch for signs of an infection. These may develop later. They may include increased ear pain, fever, or drainage from the ear.

Home care

These home-care tips will help you take care of yourself:

• You may use over-the-counter medicine as directed by your healthcare provider to control pain, unless medicine was prescribed. Talk with your provider before using any medicines if you have chronic liver or kidney disease or ever had a stomach ulcer or GI bleeding..

• Ask your provider if you may use over-the-counter decongestants such as phenylephrine or pseudoephedrine. Keep in mind they are not always helpful.

• Talk with your provider about using nasal spray decongestants. Don’t use them for more than 3 days, or as directed by your provider. Longer use can make congestion worse. Prescription nasal sprays from your provider don’t often have such restrictions.

• Antihistamines may help if you are also having allergy symptoms.

Follow-up care

Follow up with your provider as advised.

When to get medical advice

Call your healthcare provider right away if any of the following occur:

• Ear pain that gets worse or that does not start to get better 

• Fever of 100. 4°F (38°C) or higher, or as directed by your healthcare provider

• Fluid or blood draining from the ear

• Headache or sinus pain

• Changes in hearing

Call 911

Call 911 if any of the following occur:

© 2000-2022 The StayWell Company, LLC. All rights reserved. This information is not intended as a substitute for professional medical care. Always follow your healthcare professional’s instructions.

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Causes of pain in the ear

Pain in the ear can be of a different nature: sharp pain, discomfort, pressure. It is important to understand that pain is not always accompanied by somatic pathology. For example, after walking in windy weather, you can experience discomfort in the depths of the auricle, comparable to pain. This is completely normal and does not require any treatment: after a while, discomfort occurs naturally. Familiar pain and lovers of water swimming. When water enters the ear canal frequently, it causes softening of the skin and therefore slight swelling. In this case, a person may experience a feeling of squeezing, dull pain. And, finally, one of the most common causes of discomfort in the ears is excessive or, on the contrary, insufficient production of sulfur. In the event that there is too much sulfur, it forms the so-called sulfur plug, which causes hearing impairment – hearing loss – and is the cause of discomfort. If there is not enough sulfur produced by the body, the skin in the ear canal will be dry, which will also cause pain.

Among the most common causes of pain syndrome are:

Otitis;

Injury;

Sinusitis;

Ear radiating from caries;

Neuralgia of various etiologies;

Inflammation of the jaw joints;

Eczema of ear canal;

Entry into the ears of small insects;

Angina.

· Obviously, the list of causes includes quite diverse diseases, therefore, for a correct diagnosis, it is important not to dwell solely on the pain syndrome, but to consider the entire symptomatic picture as a whole.

Symptoms associated with ear pain

When a patient comes to the doctor with certain complaints, it is very important to conduct a correct differential analysis in order to accurately determine the disease that manifests itself in ear pain. It is extremely important to cover the entire clinical picture as a whole.

or Inflammatory processes in the ear canal . Usually accompanied by general intoxication of the body, because of which the patient feels weakness, drowsiness, decreased performance. The temperature may rise. With otitis externa and otitis media, the pain intensifies if you press your palm on the ear or pull it. With otitis media (inflammation of the ear canal behind the eardrum), the pain becomes intense during chewing. With the development of otitis media without proper treatment, hearing loss may occur. Internal otitis, or as it is otherwise called – a labyrinth, in addition to pain, gives a number of, at first glance, neurological symptoms: a feeling of unsteadiness when walking, dizziness with nausea and vomiting, nystagmus of the eyeballs.

or Ear injuries . An external examination can reveal bruises, bruises. A very serious symptom is bleeding from the ear canal, mixed with a clear liquid – this may indicate a fracture of the skull bone. With a burn or frostbite, the skin of the auricle has an appropriate appearance, which greatly facilitates the diagnostic process. Rupture of the eardrum is usually accompanied by fainting, tinnitus. Severe pain decreases along with increasing hearing loss.

o Foreign objects in the ear canal . Most often, this cause of pain occurs in children who can put a small object in their ear. Sometimes insects get into the ear canal. The complexity of the extraction lies in the fact that the ingress of a foreign object is always accompanied by edema, so the object or insect remains “walled up”, out of reach. At the same time, unbearable itching is noted, which prompts you to independently reach the interfering object with a cotton swab, a knitting needle. It is absolutely impossible to do this, you must seek medical help.

o Pain due to jaw disease . If the pain in the ear is intermittent and noted in other parts, for example, in the teeth when clenching the jaws or other bones of the face when pressed, then it can be suspected that the pain from the problem area “gives” to the ears. This situation often occurs with angina, when swallowing is accompanied by mild pain in the ears, removal of tonsils, wisdom teeth, or cutting the gum hood from distant teeth. Often, ear pain is the result of caries or suppuration in the gums.

Methods for diagnosing ear pain

In most cases, it is enough for a doctor to conduct an external examination using a special device that allows you to expand the ear canal and examine the condition of the eardrum and ear tissues in order to understand what is causing the pain.

o

o We recommend that you check your hearing once a year at our Spektr Hearing Rehabilitation Center located in the city of Smolensk, Lomonosova Street, 10 V. You can also write to us in our VKontakte group https://vk .com/spectrsurdolog. Our center employs highly qualified employees who will be happy to help you and solve your problem.

Ear congestion and pain: causes, diagnosis

Is ear congestion so terrible? It would seem that the ear is stuffed up, shoots and makes noise – just unpleasant sensations that, probably, every person has experienced at least once in his life. But not everything is so simple! The ear is one of the most important sense organs, thanks to which the perception of the world occurs. It is directly connected with other nearby organs – the brain, oropharynx, nose. The spread of the infection of one of them may affect the condition of the other. Do not waste time if the feeling of congestion is accompanied by pain!

An otolaryngologist can diagnose the disease and prescribe treatment. Attentive ENT doctor of our clinic “Edcar-Med” when a patient complains of congestion and pain in the ear, conducts a comprehensive diagnosis. An integrated approach allows you to discover the deepest roots of the problem, determining whether it is associated with pathologies of other organs or not.

As soon as possible, you should make an appointment with an otolaryngologist in Kaliningrad, if congestion, noise, ringing and pain in the ears do not go away for several days. Self-treatment in this case is unacceptable!

Elderly people often suffer from stuffiness and ear pain. In this case, only an ENT doctor can prevent a sharp deterioration in the condition. Only after examination and consultation can you start treatment!

Causes of ear congestion

There are actually a lot of reasons for congestion and pain in the ears. Dangerous, requiring an immediate examination by a doctor, are symptoms accompanied by purulent discharge, headaches, high body temperature, sensations of a foreign body in the ear canal.

Otitis media

The most common causes of congestion are inflammations of viral, fungal or bacterial etiology. Otherwise, it is otitis media. Sharp pain when pressing on the ear, the release of sulfur or pus from the ear canal indicate otitis externa. The patient feels pressure in the ear, hearing loss, accompanied by autophony – increased perception of one’s own voice.

A bursting feeling of congestion, pressure in the ears, a sharp decrease in hearing, severe headaches indicate otitis media. This means that the inflammation has already affected the tympanic cavity. In this case, the patient may feel sharp, shooting, aching or sharp pain in the ears, itching. By starting the problem and not seeking medical help in time, the patient risks hearing loss.

Otitis often occurs as a complication of various forms of rhinitis, sinusitis, acute respiratory infections. Illiterate treatment of respiratory organs in ARVI often leads to the development of otitis media. The acute nature of the disease during self-treatment smoothly flows into the chronic form, which is accompanied by neurological complications.

Other causes

Stuffing and pain in the ear can also be caused by:

• cerumen plug;
• lesions of the auditory tube;
• pathologies of the inner ear;
• occupational hazard;
• autoimmune or congenital diseases;
• oncological formations.

Sulfur plug, at first glance, is a harmless, common phenomenon. However, independent attempts to remove it lead to the fact that it is pushed deeper inside. Further, the sulfur plug sticks to the eardrum, injuring it, which is fraught with partial or complete hearing loss.

Eustachitis can be inflammatory. This causes swelling of the lumen of the organ, which brings discomfort to the patient. Closure of the lumen of the auditory tube can be caused by a number of diseases:

• SARS and diseases of the nasopharynx;
• allergic reactions;
• complications from improper treatment of the nasopharyngeal organs;
• and others.

Inner ear problems are another common cause of congestion and pain. At first, the patient feels ringing in the ears, but gradually the discomfort becomes stronger. Hearing loss develops, pressure in the ear increases, there is a constant aching pain. At the start of the disease, nausea and even vomiting appear, imbalance when walking. Pathology of the inner ear develops after a head injury or bacterial or viral infections.

Long-term use of medicines to treat infections may cause hearing loss and an unpleasant feeling of stuffy ears. After stopping the medication, the symptom may disappear on its own. But in some cases, neuronal cell damage occurs, which leads to the development of hearing loss. In this case, only a competent otolaryngologist can help.

In a number of rare causes of congestion and pain in the ear, occupational hazards associated with prolonged noise and vibration exposure can act. In a number of cases, patients of our clinic had congenital ear diseases or tumor formations of the nasopharynx and tympanic cavity.

Diagnosis

A complete examination of the hearing aid with instrumental and laboratory methods allows the otolaryngologist to identify the causes of discomfort and the degree of changes in all parts of the ear. Diagnosis is carried out in the following ways:

• otoscopy – instrumental examination of the outer ear;
• examination of the patency of the auditory tube;
• laboratory tests.

During the examination, the specialist detects the presence or absence of inflammation, injuries of the eardrum, damage to the inner and middle ear, swelling of the auditory tube. To determine pathogenic microbes, material is taken from the external auditory canal and sent for laboratory testing. The assumption of vascular disorders allows the doctor to conduct additional examinations.

Allergy testing is done when an allergic reaction is suspected. If the patient has neurological disorders, then such examinations as head MRI, CT, electroencephalography are prescribed. Additionally, the patient is assigned a consultation with a neurologist and other specialists.

In some cases, congestion and pain may be caused by a foreign body in the ear canal. For example, while diving into the water. Only an experienced specialist can extract it using a lighting device, a microscope and other medical devices.

A visit to the doctor should not be put off if stuffiness and pain in the ear have become regular symptoms that interfere with a full life. Alternative methods of treatment of hearing loss do not exist, so self-medication can only aggravate the situation, lead to complete hearing loss. Instillation of alcohol tinctures, essential oils and home heating of the ear will lead to the development of acute inflammation, which will adversely affect overall health.

You can make an appointment with an otolaryngologist in Kaliningrad using one of the indicated phone numbers. Our experienced doctor will definitely find the cause and prescribe the right treatment.