“What do I do about this ear pain?”
I have really severe pain in my ear, it hurts to the point of giving me headaches and causing dizziness bad enough to knock me off my feet. It's like a pulsating pain that also feels like someone's driving a knife into my ear. I don't know what to do about it because popping my ear doesn't work, nor does try to clean out my ears, or anything else I've tried. Any advice?
Female | 18 years old
Complaint duration: 4 days
7 Answers
Dr. Joni K. Doherty
Ear-Nose and Throat Doctor (ENT) | Otology & Neurotology
Los Angeles, California
It sounds like you might be suffering from migraines - do you have sensitivity to bright lights with these headaches? Any nausea, vomitting, diarrhea? Do you clench or grind your teeth? Many people clench and/or grind their teeth in their sleep and are unaware of it, but this can cause ear pain, so the best thing to do it ask your dentist.
Take an antiinflammatory and calm down. Large blood vessels travel through the temporal bone. The more anxious you get, the higher your blood pressure will be, and the more you will hear the pulsations. Ear ache in adults is commonly referred, meaning its not from the ear itself. In today's stressful life, referred pain from the Jaw joint is common from tension and teeth grinding. Also you may be experiencing a migraine.
Your best option is to consult an ENT physician. I don't think there is a way for us to have a dialogue on this website, but I would need to know the answers to several questions before I could figure out a probable diagnosis for your problem and recommend a treatment. If your pain is constant, the most likely diagnosis is external otitis, for which the best treatment is antibiotic ear drops. (General doctors and nurse practitioners commonly prescribe oral antibiotics for external otitis, which are unnecessary and ineffective.) If the pain is intermittent (only a shooting pain a few times a day), it could be caused by spasms of your jaw muscles, which have the same innervation as the ear. If it's your right ear, and you are right-handed, and you use Q-tips, the likelihood of it being external otitis is higher. Q-tips are the #1 cause of ear infections, even though there is a warning on the package not to insert them into the ear. Hope this helps...
Sounds like an ear infection which is causing an Eustachian tube problem. I would see an Ear-Nose-Throat doctor for an evaluation and treatment.
Possibilities: TMJ pain, trigeminal neuralgia, auriculotemporal neuralgia, referred pain from oral cavity. Take ibuprofen or naproxen. Hot moist compresses. Soft foods and liquids. See an ENT.
We recommend you contact an ear, nose and throat (ENT) physician to be evaluated medically.
The ear pain should be evaluated. I recommend you schedule an appointment with an ENT.
