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Extreme outer ear pain: What can it be?
Please....someone help me.
I’ve visited my allergist, an ear-nose-throat specialist and my own internist.
None of them have ever heard of my problem and don’t know how to help me.
Started approx 20 yrs ago, Every couple of months I would get an awful pain on one of my ears if I had been laying on it during the night. It would happen to either ear, whichever one I laid on.
To describe the pain. It is so intense that it wakes me. Pain is NOT inside the ear but around the edges of the entrance of it. It is so painful, I can’t touch it. It will be throbbing. It also hurts tremendously behind, towards the bottom back of the ear. Can’t touch that either. The only thing that will make it go away is when I then get up and stand and within approx 30 min it is gone. I even tested it by massaging behind the ear (once I could bear to touch it) and it seemed to make pain go away faster.
The last approx 3 years, I have no longer been able to even lay on either ear when in bed because now the pain will come every time. I have learned to sleep on my back. Sometimes I would still move onto my side during night, and wake up with pain.
For last 6 months, I’ve been having pressure and achy feeling around one of the ears, even while laying on my back. Then I started getting the pain even while sleeping on my back.
I am very much afraid that the day will come when I will no longer be able to lay down in my bed to go to sleep.
I am desperate to get to the bottom of this and perhaps for first time in 20 years be able to comfortably lay on my side in bed.
My ENT doctor said my ears are healthy .... i have no hearing loss.
This ear pain, however, is starting to affect my daily living, since I don’t seem to be able to get the restful sleep I need.
I will be forever grateful if someone could pinpoint this. thanks.
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Meloxicam!!! Only relief that I've found.
I've posted before trying to find answers or share any small successes. I haven't had any ear pain for about a month now. I don't know if it's elevation or position, but I had to start sleeping on my couch because I can only sleep on my sides. This caused my hips to hurt all the time from the pressure. Switching to the couch, my head is more elevated and I'm able to sleep at an angle instead of directly on my sides. It fixed the hip problem and my ear pressure problem went away as well. I don't know why, I just know it's such a relief not to be woken every hour because my ears are screaming in pain. Hope this helps someone else. I know many of the posts are a bit different to the type of pain I experience, but a significant number exactly describe what I feel like. It's like I've bent my ear cartilage over and pressed it against my head.
Thanks denben for your post. It does stand to reason that some of our ear problems may be from not getting enough blood flow. My painful ear seems plastered to my head when I get up in the morning. And I’ve noticed that the upper cartilage in that ear is much softer than the one I don’t sleep on.
I had biopsy of my ear tissue, and doc said it was inflammation.
@nibor63 make a paste of Tumeric and apply suggestion since tumeric is anti inflammatory
It's systemic. I would be pasting my whole body.
Has anyone else tried drinking more water? This seems to help me when I get a similar pain. I keep a bottle on my bedside table.
@cutestain I keep a bottle of water by bedside but for dry mouth I do drink alot of water throughout the day and found sleeping without a pillow helps me .
I've had this pain for 20 some years. I wake up with pain at the tip of my ear, it seems to be only at the tips of the ear. It's like the pain when as kids you would bite down on the middle of your finger nail for a minute and then release the bite, the pressure pain would be instant. I get this on both ears, making it very difficult to get a good night sleep. I try sleeping on my back, but manage to roll over on to my side. I have spent tons of money trying to find the right pillow in which I've had no luck with. It's very frustrating, if anyone who is dealing with this and has found a fix for it, I would love to hear of it.
Interesting. I'm doing neurotin now. This whole cartiledge ear pain thing is a mystery. There is 1 pain relief that works, but it certainly is not a product that you would acknowledge using, at least not in public. I hope you are feeling better.