What causes dull ear pain?

If you feel a dull pain in your ears, you should pay attention. There are many reasons for dull pain in the ears, the most common of which is otitis media. If you do not pay attention to timely treatment, otitis media may cause hearing loss, often causing tinnitus and ear pain symptoms. In order to prevent otitis media, you should avoid water entering your ears when swimming or washing your hair, and do not clean your ears with your hands or sharp objects.

Symptoms of otitis media

1. Hearing loss: decreased hearing and enhanced self-hearing. The symptoms are that turning the head sometimes improves the condition and sometimes causes blockage. If only one ear is affected, it may go unnoticed for a long time.

2. Earache: Acute otitis media will cause persistent dull earache or occasional cramping pain, while chronic otitis media patients will not have obvious earache. This disease may be accompanied by a feeling of blockage or stuffiness in the ear, which can be temporarily relieved by pressing the tragus.

3. Tinnitus: It is mostly low-pitched and intermittent, such as "crackling", buzzing and the sound of running water. When the head moves or when yawning or blowing the nose, a sound of air passing through water may be heard in the ears.

What to do if the ear hurts

1. Try not to pick your ears. Do not use dirty, sharp objects to dig your ears to avoid infection and inflammation. The distance from the opening of the external auditory canal to the eardrum of an adult is only 3.5 cm. When using a cotton swab to clean earwax, the part that extends into the external auditory canal should be between 2.5 and 3 cm to avoid puncturing the eardrum. In addition, do not go to massage parlors or beauty salons for ear cleaning. First, there is no guarantee that the instruments are sterilized, and second, non-professionals may injure the eardrum.

2. Prevent colds. Summer is the peak season for colds, and ear infections are often caused by colds.

3. Try not to let water enter the external auditory canal. When swimming or washing your hair or taking a bath, if water enters your ears, wipe it off immediately with a cotton swab to keep the external auditory canal clean and dry.

4. In addition, maintaining the same posture for a long time while working, studying or playing games can easily cause compression of the delicate blood vessels and nerves in the ears. This is the reason why many patients have tinnitus but cannot find the cause. If you sit for more than an hour, you should do some physical exercise and relax your neck appropriately.