Oh my Ear hurts ! Complaints , and Causes

It is not an unusuall presentation “my ear hurts’’. The variety that comes under the heading of HURT is wide and constitues a spectrum depending upon the cause , extent of infection , age of person and immune status.

My Ear hurts : what are the common Complaints ?

The common COMPLAINTS are : pain , burning sensation , foreign body sensation , fullness , bloody dischage , pus discharge or purulent , watery dicharge , something coming out of ear .

The ASSOCIATED symptoms or complaints may be : fever , dizziness , vomitting , difficulty in hearing , difficulty in mainaining posture or balance , loss of apetite or loss of sleep.

My Ear hurts : what are the Causes for this pain?

The CAUSES of ear pain can be within the ear or reffered from another painful place or shifted from another site . Following can be some conditions where ear hurts :

Infection of inner – inner ear infection , middle or outer ear ; infection may be bacterial , viral or fungal , even aleergic . The discharge is of great help to know the cause , for example , viral infection leads to watery discharge etc ,cold and sinus infection , exposure to tobacco smoking , motion sickness , infected adenoid or tonsils , respiratory tract infection , any foreign body impacted , trauma , sunburn , wax , boil in ear , herpes zoster infection , low immunity , piercing leading to trauma or infection , cranial nerve irritation can also lead to conditions which hurts the ear ; c2 , c3 , c4 , c5 (sponal nerves ) , 7^th , 5^th , 9^th , 10^th cranial nerves .

The most common causes of non-ear pain are : TMJ , Tonsillitis ,eustacian tube dysfunction , throat infection or tumor and cervical spine diseases . Noise , tension , pollution and migraine can also cause pain.

Complication of otalgia : if the ear hurts , if it can be a very benign and uncomplicated condition it may be a serious problem as well , the complications may be , temporary or permanent hearing loss , ear drum rupture , demage to external ear canal , vertigo , tinitus , menengitis , cranial nerve demage leading to paralysis , tympenosclerosis and demage to bony structures or cartilage etc.

Treatment / management Of the Ear Discomfort : The treatment is usually symptomatic and especially focuses on the underlying disease . Anti biotic , anti virals , analgesics ; systemic or in form of oil are prescribed .

There are some NO points in treatment as one begins with in home , donot use any thing to clean or dry ear , don’t try to take the foreign body out urself !! if u feel a living foreign body , put some drops of oil or water in ear . Surgical treatment or remodeling is usually for the complicated cases .

The conditions where ear hurts , people prone more to such situations are those with low immunity , respiratory tract infections , GERD and most importantly who are fond of cleaning and fingring etc ear.