Ear and Neck Pain

Our body as we all very well know is a complex system of nerves, muscle fibers, tendons and umpteen number of things. Subsequently, all our body parts are either directly or indirectly connected. The most common and perfect example of this is ear, nose and throat. Most of us have certainly experienced that if you have a cold, you can also feel some sort of irritation in your ears. Needless to say, you may also feel some kind of sensation and scratchiness in your throat. Similarly sometimes if you have pain in your ear, there is a chance that you might have neck pain as a consequence. The basic premise is this, that our ears have fibers, connected to the cranial nerves. Cranial nerves involve the skull, the facial nerves and cervical nerves, which are the nerves in the neck area. Now all these fibers continue into the neck, chest and head. This is how when anything affects the ear, there is a chance that you could have pain in the neck and vice versa.

Causes
There are quite a few causes that can attribute to a combination of pain in neck and ear. Some of them can be chronic underlying medical causes, while some can be very routine, common causes.

Common Causes: An airplane trip or a foreign body in your ear are the common culprits of this problem. In addition to this, a respiratory infection from a common cold can lead to pain. In other cases, if you have pierced your ear and it leads to infection, incorrect sleeping posture or tension can be the cause for pain. Sometimes, even acute strain on neck muscles can be the cause.

Serious and Chronic Causes: Tonsillitis, Temporomandibular joint (Jaw joint) syndrome, commonly called TMJ, sore throat, dental problems and cervical spine arthritis are serious reasons for pain in the neck and ear. Amongst the chronic causes are Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, which involves damage to facial nerve, meningitis, auto immune disorders, Bell's palsy and tumors on internal organs. Ear diseases are also a culprit of stiff neck and ear problems. Finally, cancer of the voice box can also lead sore throat, resulting in pain in ears and neck respectively. But this has to be diagnosed correctly after the appropriate test. Otherwise, it could be a very minor thing and you get all worked up due to the brouhaha created about it.

In children, many times the cause is infection in the middle ear. It is termed as acute otitis media. It is mostly treated as a bacterial illness and does not last for more than 24 hours. This scenario creates a chance for severe pain in the neck area and ears. In case the infection is viral, a child may not respond to the treatment and there may be a chance of recurrence. In extreme cases, this infection affects the skull, but that is very rare.

Treatment
The treatment will solely depend on the causes aforementioned. For instance, if it is something like a wrong sleeping position, doing a few neck exercises and applying ointment on the neck and behind the ear will do the trick. If it is diagnosed as TMJ, a trip to the dentist (even if you loathe it) is inevitable. The course of action will be decided by otolarnyngologist - a specialist in diseases and treatments of the ear, nose and throat.

Now I hope you will surely keep tabs on this kind of pain and approach a specialist as soon as possible. Here is where I sign off! Take Care!