Ear Pain Relief: Medications, Surgeries & Self-Care Tips

If you’re experiencing ear pain, you likely want relief fast.

Learn more about how to get rid of ear pain, including what medications to use, self-care tips and what surgeries may help, depending on the cause of your ear pain.

What is ear pain?

Ear pain comes from the inside of your ear canal (the tunnel inside your ear). Your ear pain may feel:

• Achy
• Dull
• Sharp

Your pain may be mild or severe, depending on the cause.

Ear pain causes

Causes of ear pain, according to Cleveland Clinic, include:

• Foreign object (a tiny object in your ear)
• Infection inside the ear
• Pressure change (that fullness or pain you feel when you’re scuba diving or on an airplane)
• Sinus or upper respiratory infection
• Sore throat
• Swimmers ear
• TMJ, or temporomandibular joint dysfunction (problems with your jaw joint)

Sharp pain in your ear probably means that you have an infection, said Dr. Kristen Yancey, an otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine, in New York City. “If you have fluid behind your ear drum, that pain tends to be more dull."

Sometimes the pain isn’t caused by a problem with your ear. There could be an issue somewhere else in your body, but you’re feeling the pain in your ear. This is called referred pain.

“Your doctor may need to look for inflammation [swelling] in your throat,” or a dentist may need to check your teeth, Yancey explained.

Ear pain symptoms

If you have ear pain, you may also have these symptoms listed by Yancey and Johns Hopkins Medicine:

• Balance problems (rare)
• Discharge/drainage that comes out of your ear
• Fever
• Muffled hearing
• Sore throat
• Swelling

Ear pain treatments: How to get relief

When you’re uncomfortable, all you want to know is how to relieve ear pain. Ear pain relief starts with self-care. Then, you can try some medications (ear drops). If there is a major issue with your ear, you may need surgery.

Self-care tips

The Cleveland Clinic recommends these self-care options:

• Cold compress
• Hot compress
• Over-the-counter pain reliever (acetaminophen or ibuprofen)
• Neck stretching, rotating
• Sleep with your ears up higher than the rest of your body
• Sleep on the opposite side of the painful ear

Medications/ear drops

You may need antibiotics and some ear drops for pain. The Cleveland Clinic says your doctor may want you to use ear drops for pain and numbing drops for inflammation and pain.

Surgery options that may help with ear pain

You may need a surgery called a tympanoplasty, according to the Cleveland Clinic, if you have an ear infection that won’t go away or if there’s a hole in your eardrum.

Your doctor may know how to stop ear pain some other way. That’s why it’s always important to contact your doctor, Yancey warns, especially if the pain lasts for longer than a couple of days.

Living with ear pain

Ear pain usually only lasts for a short time, so most people don’t have to live with it for long. Typically, the cause is an infection.

“If you have chronic ear infections,” Yancey warned, “you could have complications.”

It’s rare, but sometimes chronic ear pain could mean a throat cancer. If the pain in your ear goes on longer than a couple of days, or you don’t see an obvious reason for the pain, Yancey recommends that you see your primary care physician right away.

References

Kristen Yancey, MD, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City

Cleveland Clinic: Earache (Ear Pain, Otalgia)

Cleveland Clinic: 3 Home Remedies for an Ear Infection

Cleveland Clinic: Tympanoplasty

Johns Hopkins Medicine: Middle-Ear Infection in Adults