Ear pain and dizziness along with other symptoms

@discovery33 I have had these symptoms too, ear pain, sometimes pain on the side of my face or jaw, and my ear turns beet red too. I have had dizziness and vertigo.

For me, this has been caused by the alignment of my head and neck, and the way the skull sits on the spine. Muscle spasms can pull this out of proper alignment and cause tilting or rotation of the upper cervical vertebrae independent from turning your head. Then, if you move or turn your head, you have an exaggerated twisting of cervical vertebrae. I have thoracic outlet syndrome that causes neck muscles to be too tight on one side, and I am a spine surgery patient because of a collapsed disc at C5 C6. This was happening frequently before I had corrective spine surgery, and much less after surgery. My body remembers these old patterns, and I can still have some rotation at C1 and C2 if I sleep wrong. My physical therapist helps realign my neck and stabilization exercises help hold it in place. The TOS causes changes to circulation when I turn my head and that diagnosis is often missed by doctors. One of the tests for it is that the doctor listens to the pulse diminish when the patent turns their head. You may want to have an evaluation at a place that treats TOS like Mayo, and/or a physical therapist who is familiar with treating this. TOS is often misunderstood and missed and doctors think it is rare. What is rare, is finding a doctor who understands it, and TOS isn't rare. The nausea can come from impaired circulation to the brain because of misalignment of the spine, jaw and skull. My gut feeling is that once you find a physical therapist who understands this, it will help a lot. My PT also uses myofascial release because it helps get the body moving properly again, and releases the pressure and tightness on tissues and enables better circulation.

Here are some links that may help and these can get pretty technical. You can always take these articles with you during an evaluation and ask about the information and if your case is similar. I would highly recommend Mayo or a place with similar expertise in a teaching university medical center. They evaluated my TOS prior to my spine surgery because of overlap in symptoms. These problems can be caused by posture, and a forward head position, and physical therapy can help a lot. It has for me. I was working on TOS with a PT at the time my spine issue surfaced and doing that helped me have a great recovery after my surgery.

TOS
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/thoracic-outlet-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20353988
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/how-truly-treat-thoracic-outlet-syndrome/

Vestibular Impairment
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/vestibular-impairment-and-its-association-to-the-neck-and-tmj/

TMJ
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/true-cause-solution-temporomandibular-dysfunction-tmd/

Tinnitus and the neck
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/association-tinnitus-neck-tmj/

Cervical spine instability
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/atlas-joint-instability-causes-consequences-solutions/

Myofascial Release
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this up for me. I have a appt. with internal doctor at Gunderson tomorrow in Onalaska, WI. I literally printed off this stuff and will ask him who I can see at Mayo? Do you go to Mayo or have any suggestions for Doctor to see? Thank you so much.

@discovery33 You are welcome. Good luck at your appointment. I hope you'll share your experience with us. I had spine surgery at Mayo in Rochester. I traveled to go to Mayo which is a 5 hour drive for me. You could start with a neurologist in the spine center there because of the dizziness symptoms. They would be able to refer you to other specialists depending on what they find. The neurologist who saw me was picked by my neurosurgeon because I was consulting about a spine problem, and the neurologist is Dr. John Bartleson. He referred me to Dr. Roger Shepherd in the Vascular center who evaluated the thoracic outlet syndrome and ordered Doppler studies. If you wanted to try to see Dr. Bartleson, here is his profile. https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/bartleson-john-d-jr-m-d/bio-00026037
It's possible you could be referred to some of their rehab doctors. Here is the link to them and shows their areas of interest, but I don't have any experience with them. https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/physical-medicine-rehabilitation/physicians

You can search for physical therapists who do myofascial release on the MFR website at https://myofascialrelease.com/find-a-therapist/