“How long does it take an ear infection to go away?”

Untreated it gets worse.

It depends. It can take days, hours, or weeks depending on how bad it is. You need to see your local primary care Dr or specialist so they can examine you and see if you truly have an ear infection and need antibiotics or it's wax etc

There is no simple answer as there are 3 types of ear infections. 1. There external type, known as “swimmer’s ear”, where fungi or bacteria invade the tissues outside of the East drum. Treatment is with drops, pain killers (it can really hurt), and some time an oral antitrust is it is advanced.
2, the common ear infections where there bacteria invade the fluid inside the East drum. While it hurts, it usually responds promptly to oral antibiotics.
3. A low-grade, more chronic inflammation associated with the presence of a lot of fluid behind the ear drum which may be triggered by either allergies or low grade bacterial infection. The main symptoms are more pressure than pain and possible dizziness/vertigo or reduced hearing due to the excess fluid behind the ear drum. Treatment is less effective, usually with either a week of antibiotics or 10 days of cortisone pills. These are only about 50% effective. Full relief, if these treatments fail may require tubes to be placed in the ear drum.
The patient cannot usually know which of these infections they have by themselves as the symptoms are so similar. Correct diagnosis requires a careful ear exam by your medical provider. It matters because the treatments are different.

Once you start antibiotics for an inner ear infection, you should see improvement within 48-72 hours. If not, then you may need to check back with your provider and consider switching to a different antibiotic.

Usually 5 days. It depends how severe and if only the middle ear or outer ear is infected and what kind of antibiotics are used.

Are you on antibiotics? If so you should start feeling some relief in 24 hours and about 5-7 to clear. If not on antibiotics it can take several days to go away

Sorry you are not feeling well. What needs to be considered is how long you have had symptoms and when you were diagnosed with an ear infection. Typically after you are diagnosed with an ear infection, your doctor would tell you what to expect based on their evaluation of you and their management plan. Your doctor would also give you precautions on returning if you are not getting better within a certain timeframe.

It would not be appropriate for me to provide you with a specific expectation of disease course without an evaluation and medical history, as the length of ear infections are variable and depend on multiple factors including the location of the infection (inner, middle vs outer); your immune system, medical co-morbidities etc.

I would recommend following up with the provider who diagnosed you in case you need to be re-evaluated.

72 hrs