celesteh77, thank you for your reply. I've done more research on my wife's problem since I first posted last night. I'm not a doctor. When I got back from Vietnam I intended to use my GI Bill to study Biomedical Engineering. The University messed up my registration and only scheduled me for the engineering course and not the medical course. I'd have to start the medical course the next year. That was enough to make me drop the original idea. Glad I did, because I would not have liked to put up with what my wife has to put up with daily patient-wise. Everybody wants drugs for something because they saw it on TV, but they probably didn't watch it long enough to see the lawyers advertising their services for those who took the advertised drugs with their side effects. Anyway, as life progressed I earned a BSME and JD, and was a member of the Bar from 1989 to my retirement October 22, 2018. And after being around my wife for 42 years, listening to countless medical classes on her CDs as we traveled (and getting dined by drug reps in fancy restaurants in the past), I think I could almost do her job. She loves delivering babies. No thanks!

So, after posting last night I read almost all of the posts in this area of concern with ear pain. Along engineering thinking protocol as it pertains to the human body machine, I note that one thing most, if not all, of those posting here, all probably have the same physical structure and layout of the nervous system. That is, "the greater auricular nerve is a cutaneous branch of the cervical plexus (connected to nerves coming out of vertebrae C2 & C3) that innervates the skin of the auricle as well as skin over the parotid gland and mastoid process. The greater auricular nerve also supplies branches that innervate the deep layer of the parotid fascia."

My wife seldom sleeps facing toward me (probably because of my snoring and/or bad breath), but sleeps mainly on her left side, or left ear. She is all over the place with the pillow, part of the night on it, other parts curled up off of it. So, the orientation of her cervical spinal column changes throughout the night, and as her muscles relax there is more of a chance her vertebra may 'pinch' on the nerve coming out of those two vertebrae (C2 & C3), which could cause the excitation of the nerve endings in her ear. It would be interesting to see if the same pain ever originates in the left ear instead of the right, indicating to me that C2 and C3 need an adjustment to relieve any 'pinching.'

There are several posts of individuals who got pillows recommended by their chiropractors. That tells me that they are probably using a pillow that keeps the alignment of the cervical vertebra in a normal, unstressed, orientation during the night. Plus, they have most likely had a cervical adjustment by their chiropractor too. I doubt that vitamins D3 and Ca would have any direct affect on this problem, but rather think that it is a 'mechanical' orientation problem in most if not all who are experiencing this ear pain.

This morning her ear pain is gone. If it comes back, I will give her a cervical adjustment right away to see if that eliminates the pain. (I learned how to do chiropractor adjustments from the neck to L5/S1 after having had adjustments over the years since I was a little kid, and from my volunteering to be the guinea pig for adjustments for my wife's Osteopathic training at OUCOM back in the 80's. My wife is better at diagnosing vertebrae out of place than I, but doesn't adjust me as well as my favorite chiropractor.). There is nothing like the 'freedom' of movement and well-being after a good neck adjustment by a knowledgeable and competent chiropractor, or DO who does manipulations.

This condition reminds me of when my little fingers would be numb after sleeping all night long. Everyone said, "Oh, you have carpal tunnel syndrome." That did not make any logical sense to me at all. Since I stopped exercising long ago, my muscles have become lax. When I was sleeping at night on my sides, my arms would hang down over my chest, 'pinching' the nerve that goes down my arm through the arm pit. After I figured that out, what I did was get a stout pillow to rest my arm over at night instead of letting it hang down over my chest. That alleviated the numbness in my little fingers, and kept me from getting unnecessary surgery.

One more thing. My wife always says, "The least amount of surgery is the best amount of surgery, and the least amount of medicine is the best amount of medicine." Before she was coroner, and during, she would visit homes where most individuals were taking multiple medications every day, for years. There were some who actually had up to 32 pills they were taking daily. Back in the 90's, our neighbor Dorothy who lived across the street, was miserable with ear drums getting holes in them. Dorothy was the one taking 32 medications. More than not are taking 5-10 medications or more for various 'conditions.' My observation and opinion is that the majority of physicians, both DO and MD, are taught in medical schools to prescribe medications for almost everything, including muscle relaxers for conditions that would better be treated by chiropractic or osteopathic manipulations and exercises. Nutrition, acupuncture, herbal remedies, homeopathics, etc., are not taught more than one or two classes in medical schools. My opinion, more people are getting killed yearly by multiple drugs prescribed to them than by guns, cars, and accidents. The body is not designed to eliminate the amount of poison (drugs) people are ingesting daily as prescribed by their physicians, thinking that this pill or that pill is going to solve their problem, just because a symptom is eliminated by the drug, with the underlying problem just getting worse and exhibiting other follow on symptoms.

Grandpa drank the bacon grease out of the frying pan every morning after it cooled down some, and he lived to be 97 when he died. And, our family had eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns, orange juice, bread with real butter and honey and unpasteurized milk, probably at least half of our lives in total. Four eggs daily for breakfast has been my regimen for years with bacon or ham, plus my vitamins and minerals. Anything advertised as 'low fat' or artificial butter like stuff I avoid like the plague. Adele Davis used to say, "You are what you eat." That is just basic common sense. Grandpa probably never needed any laxatives.