I tried ibuprofen several times . did not work for me....but could for you. I used feather pillows so I could punch hole where my ear would be. once a day I was taking two allergy pills cetirizine which is generic for Zyrtec. keep in mind that my idea that mine was allergy related is just my guess since nothing else changed in my routine or medical situations. my allergies started approx. 30 years ago so it would be logical that inflammation and pain was related to that. also, after the pain was gone, and I started to go to one pill a day instead of two, in couple of weeks my right ear (bad one) started to feel like it was coming back. I quickly went to 2 pills a day again. after a couple of weeks, went back to one a day. it has not come back since that time, last fall. I am so lucky. by the way I used to get up in middle of night when pain woke me and sit up for about 5 minutes or so. pain would go away. later I discovered if I massaged around outside of ear it would go away faster. started softly and increased pressure as I could tolerate it. I wonder if inflammation of cartilage can occur for many reasons. when I was at ENT and he mentioned about the inflamed cartilage, he said "buy the highest thread count of pillow casing, that should help". I could not understand how that could be but did buy it as he suggested. shortly after that all pain was gone. I can't imagine that the thread count could have done it. but it's wonderful to sleep on ...ha ha. good luck to you.