Ear Pain - Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment

Pain in the ear is one of the most common complaints. It is present in infectious, allergic and malignant diseases of the ear and related structures.

Causes of Ear Pain

Few important diseases that cause ear pain are:

• Acute Perichondritis (swelling, redness and pain) of pinna of ear.
• Otomycosis (fungal infection of the ear).
• Furunculosis (recurring boil) in the ear canal.
• Acute otitis media (middle ear infection).
• Acute exacerbation of chronic otitis media.
• Chronic otitis media with mastoiditis (infection of the skull bone behind the ear) or mastoid abscess.
• Traumatic lesions of the ear.
• Insect bite.

Besides these, there are a few conditions where there is no disease associated with the ear, but the patient often get ear pain along with this. This is medically named as referred otalgia.

Causes of Referred Otalgia:

• Dental pathology of molar teeth.
• Infective and malignant lesions of base of tongue.
• Acute tonsillopharyngitis (infection of the tonsils and the pharynx).
• Eustachian tube dysfunctions.
• Arthritis of temporomandibular joint (jaw joint).

Diagnosis and Treatment

All the above diseases have their own clinical features. Diagnosis is made on the basis of clinical findings and their correlation with relevant investigations. Depending upon the diagnosis, treatment is carried out. Every disease needs separate treatment.

Few of them are treated by medicines while some need surgical intervention.

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