Unusual ear pain associated with migraine

By Jaime Kimber Sunday, October 21, 2007

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I have a burning question to ask since the neurologists and ENTs I've gone to are stumped: Is bilateral shooting ear pain normal with migraine? My headaches always start off as a severe, sharp, stabbing pain in both ears in the morning when I wake up, and it spreads throughout my whole head (when it turns into an all-out pulsing migraine with aura), and the pain even snakes down my neck. It feels as if someone is impaling my skull through my ears with a long crowbar, and not a day goes by that I don't experience this.

Since this started last year, I have missed almost every day of school because of this shooting pain, and my sensitivity to sound and lights is unbearable. No medicine helps, except for the last-resort abortive meds such as Darvocet/Propoxyphene (but those give me rebound headaches). Muscle relaxers (Cyclobenzaprine for me) help once in a while, but this ear pain never stops. The Ear Nose & Throat specialist says I am fine! I have had MRIs, x-rays, and other tests - they are all normal too. Any suggestions or theories are very, very appreciated.

A comfortable spinal tap

Comments (23) | Add comment

Nancy Harris Bonk, Health Guide

10/21/07 7:46pm

Hello, and welcome to MyMigraineConnection.com!

We are unable to give medical advise because we are not medical professionals. What we can do is provide you with information Migraine disease. I really don't know about your ear pain other than it may be part of a Migraine With Aura.

Intracranial Hypertension (formery called PTC) is a condition where our bodies don't absorb cerebrospinal fluid, or produces too much. We can experience throbbing head pain, ringing in our ears, whoosing sounds and neck pain. You best bet would be to see a Migraine specialist who can help you figure this out and help you feel better. This doctor is an expert in headache disorders and Migraine disease.

Thank you for creating a SharePost. SharePosts are a form of blogging, and there are many things you can do with them. You can share an experience, suggest something that's helped you, use SharePosts as a Migraine and headache journal, and many other things.

We also have a discussion forum that you may want to check out. Especially if you have questions or are looking for information, you may find the interaction on the forum to be quite helpful. To get to the forum, just look for the orange box marked "Manage" and click on the Migraine Forums link. Because our forums are maintained by a third party, you'll need to register for the forum. You can use the same information you used to create your community log-in if you like. If you want to go directly to the forum, you can click HERE.

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If you have any questions, please feel free to post them to the forum or send me a message through my profile.

Welcome again,

Nancy Bonk
MyMigraineConnection.com Expert

PS: If you receive this message from more than one of us, please excuse the overlap. Thanks!

lisa miche

4/ 4/12 3:08pm

Nancy,

This IIH is getting me thinking. Trust me I'm not one to be a hypodondric by self-diagnosing from websites. As a matter of fact I tend to lean towards ruling out the symptoms I DON'T have rather than focusing on the ones I DO have. As I look over the list of symptoms for this IIH, I see that I have all of these except one. Hearing loss. I have been to see an audiologist and she said my hearing is perfect. Is this something I should have my medical doctor look into further? I am so frustrated with this pain. I live on Advil. I take 4 at a time (around the clock) just to keep the pain tolerable. I have told my doctor this and he said I shouldn't be taking that much Advil. DUH! Seriously?? If I don't I can't tolerate the pain. I'm not sure if the pain is getting worse, or if the Advil is just not as effective as it once was. I am desperate to get resolution.

Andrea

11/ 7/07 8:41pm

I have the same problem for a year and 8 months, the pain in the ears and the migraine took over my life. The neurologists found nothing and the medicine is almost as bad as the pain. Contact me maybe we can share resources

Adriennne Kraft

12/ 7/07 2:35pm

I have suffered for MANY years with migraines.. But in the past few years the doctor has prescribed TOPAMAX daily as a preventative measure. It really works! I began at 25mg and have now increased to 100mg twice a day. In addition to this regimen, my neurologist has added Cymbalta 60mg. It not only helps with the lessening of anxiety, but it also works with the neurosystem with pain. Hope this helps! Believe me... I know your pain!

Nitesh B

12/14/07 11:29am

I too had same problem; deep pain in one ear followed by nasal blockage. I referred neuro surgeon. He gave me valproic acid tablets for 3 months with ritzatriptan and prioxicam as painkillers for SOS. Now I am fine, no pain :)!!

Elayne

3/23/08 1:28pm

I had the same experience with my neurologist, he seemed to be stumped by this as well. The ear pain is almost more unbearable for me than the headache. I take 100 mg of Imitrex and this helps.

Anonymous

6/19/08 3:39pm

Many years ago, my migraines started off as stabbing external ear pain that then radiates out across the left side of my head. As you described, I've never encountered a medical professional who knew what to make of it, which makes me kind of suspicious and embarrassed simultaneously, because it seems like they think I'm just making up a weird symptom. I do find that, for me, Imitrex or Zomig abort this particular type of migraine pretty well.

Anonymous

10/17/08 2:30pm

I have only had half a dozen migraines and last night was horrendous. I too experience ear pain first and during. I went to have my ears checked today and the doctor said they looked fine. I am so glad that I am not alone in this migraine/ear dilemma.

Andra

10/15/08 9:38pm

I have the same problem with the ear pain and my doctors have also seemed surprised. I take an Imitrex and lay down with a cold sinus mask on my eyes and my ear on a heating pad (on the low setting). I don't know if it is alright to put my ear on the heating pad but it is the only way to get to sleep and get relief. It works EVERY time for me!!

My doctor put me on 200mg/day of Topomax for about 9 months to try and break my cycle of migraines. I have just gone off of it this week so I am waiting to see if it worked. But I can tell you that while I was on the Topomax, my migraines were MUCH less frequent. However, I needed to come off due to a wierd side effect (again puzzeling my doctor). I was having heart palpitations, that did go away when I reduced the Topomax!

Anonymous

1/19/09 5:41pm

My first migraine happened with me feeling very sensitive to the light through my window and then the next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed 4-5 days with some doctor telling me he stabbed me with some strong douse of something that I can't remember. Since then I've been getting the massive "ear/crowbar" experiances, and all that stuff. Maybe its just me but I think most Real Migraine people have a constant headace 24/7 that we cant get away from and learn to live with. But I have learned a few things that really trigger the migraine, yes I had similer to you for about 3 weeks straight. But after living like that for so long I decided to experiment because the doctars couldn't tell me squat. I found out greasy foods, oily foods, stress, physical overuse/enough to get you gasping for breath, jogging of the head in anyway even from suddenly going into a sprint or standing up to fast will throw me into a migraine. Also certin shampoos and hair condisioners or calone that have alchohole in them also trigger them, sometimes not fully but im sure you can feel one coming on like I do. Even sometimes days in advance, but we all get the random morning killers which come out of nowhere. Keeping fit, not overly fit but not a couch potatoe really helps, it keeps your body inline and it will really try to take care of itself if we keep it well. Smoking, drugs, alchohole and suger also have effect to increase or trigger them I find, for me anyways. Weather occasionally, but I havent been able to figure out what chances exactly. Heat and humidity, mainly humidity. Certin volt bulbs, LCD screens. Low quality big screen TV's. Smells, colour depths. There are so many things I personally havce found that make a difference. I can't take anything the doctors give me, if I do it almost sends me into a coma.

Really most of it is taking care of yourself. Being considerate and careful. I don't want to sound cheesy but prayer has worked for me on some of my worst migraines, Im not going to label it as the cure because I have not been cured of it. But without it I can't imagin going through my migraines without prayer, I think I would be in a coma right now if I haddent trusted God with it. Yeah, cheesy I know, bringing religion into it. But its something thats worked for me, im a christian and yeah, it works try praying and asking God sometime. Im not saying it WILL WORK, but I really suggest trying, don't give up all hope. If you havent found something yet, you will.

Avonmom

5/26/09 2:21am

I am so glad to hear that other people are going thru the same thing as me.. I have had some migraines before, but nothing like last Sat. I work as a hairstylist and in the middle of curling someones hair, this sharp headache came on and just got worse and worse! In a matter of seconds I could feel it moving down the back of my head and felt something "stab" out both of my ears then crawl its way down my neck!! I have NEVER felt pain like that before! I thought my ears wear bleeding! I felt like I was going to vomit and had to hold on the chair to balance myself. My customer had some Excedrine migraine and I took that which helped. I bought some at the store but every 12 hours it seems to wear off and I am still nauseus right before the headaches start up again! :(

I plan on going to the Dr.s and asking about Imitrex or something like that..

thnx!

N. Ferrell

6/27/09 10:50pm

My sister use to get bad migraines, she researched and found that there is an element in many products that she use to eat that can bring on migraines (I don't recall what the element is) but it is found in tea, bananas, coffee, chocolate are just some of the foods I recall. She stoped eating the foods and she said she hardly gets them any more. She was given a prescription of a nasal spray if one occours, and the spray is only a one time use & then get a new one. I hope this helps.

Anonymous

9/ 8/09 4:07pm

I have a similair feeling you have it all started with a stomach virus I caught Playing airsoft outside laying in the dirt what a bunch of crap. anyways i woke up dizzy as fuck room spinning it went away after a few days but after a few days going to bed everyday the side effects still lingured there when going to sleep like i will feel in bed almost hmm this is hard to explain imagine jerking yur head slowly to the right if that makes sense and then it repositioning and starting over not really as being dizzy but just fucked up wierd enough to not be able to sleep i went to a speciealist and had them do tests i dont have mineris disease which my dad has not fun at all which is something you might have with your sensitive to lights and sounds but if your not getting dizzy then its not it. i have ear migranes the doctor said soemthing in the ear to cause a migrane and fuck up the nervs in your ear which take fucken years to clear up once you disterbe your vestibuluar sytstim your fucked take valumes its relaxes nervs and that helps a bunch and at 8 bukcs a bottle you cant go wrong with the prescription ive been to a cyropracter which helped a bit to he told me i had migraine without giveing me a bunch of cat scans and bullshit and that funny i do belive in them guys right now i take (topamex) which is suppose to prevent migraines from happining not cure it but it fucken helps alot to think we can land a robot piece of shit on mars thats billions of money and we can fucken figure out a damn cure for a migraine or dizzyness or w/e your case may be. what a joke but if your ears feel full of water with a ringing you have manirers << not spelled right infact my typeing is very bad. but being dizzy is no fun ruins your life and you cant even play a video game or sit in the damn shower or take a shit. try Valumes those work so good.

Diana

5/11/10 12:11pm

I am 52 years old and for 23 years i too have had migranes. In the earlier years of my migranes I took esgic plus, midrin, volterin and because I took these drugs for so long day after day I developed a peptic ulcer. now the only drug I can take is imitrex or any thing with sumatriptin in it. The imitrex helps with the migrane BUT! does not with the ear pain therefore I end up in the doctors office getting a demerol shot. this is almost every month. I know pain and I feel each and every one of your pains and I pray that a miracle drug is developed to stop these horrible attacks soon.

Lisa Miche

1/20/11 5:25pm

I have ear pain with migraines too! The day before the onset of the migraine I have a deep inner ear itch. The kind that is impossible to satisfy. I am learning that this is my clue that a migraine is coming on. When the migraine hits, the ear pain is intolerable. The pain then crawls up the front of my face behind my eyes (like the sinus area) then down the back of my head and my neck. My neck feels like there is something physically wrong with it! Like the spine is out of whack or something. The horrible pain then encompasses so deep into my neck that my throat actually begins to hurt. My throat will feel like a sore throat. The kind you get when you have a cold or flu. My doctor has given me Imitrex and this is just not helping any more. What is strange is as fast as it comes on, it will just go away. This can be a few hours or a few days. I am not a "go to bed" kind of person, but these have been putting me in bed literally. I noticed the increase the year after I had a hysterectomy. I still have my ovaries so my doc is guessing that this is permenopause. Fun. I'm only 42 years old. Of course, my female issues have been a lifelong thing for me. Endometriosis and pre-cancer cells on my cervix eventually led to the hysterectomy at age 38. Today my doc prescribed a very low dose of estrogen that is delivered through a patch placed on my abdomen. I am hopeful that I will start to see a decrease in these migraines if they are indeed triggered by hormones (or lack of). I have a friend who has been prescribed a pill form of Toradol (a non-narcotic med) along with Imitrex. She said it works great. I think I am gonna ask my primary doc for the Toradol to take along with the Imitrex, because again.....Imitrex just isn't doing the trick alone.

Mike

6/27/11 3:59am

I'm only 19 and I have had this kind of migraine since I was 16 or 17. Sometimes it begins with the ear itching deep deep inside and/or with the pressure. I notice that the pain comes with every pulse running through my ear to my head, or something. It's as if I can hear the pulse. Sometimes the pain even goes so far as the neck. I usually get migraine when I'm derived of sleep, water, or when I'm really using my brain (especially when I'm learning English, doing English exercises, tests, anything that has to do with a language, even a program language) and it's always the left ear and left side of the brain that suffers from this pain.

Mike

6/27/11 4:01am

Forgot to add that English is my second language. :)

I guess this pain is associated with my logical thinking.

Redhead

4/23/11 6:17pm

soo this is new for me- I thought I had endured it all... 35yo female always had migraines, added on cluster headaches at age of 23. Somewhere along the line trigeminal neuralgia joined the show too. The longest one I remember was 4months. Topomax saved me. I began going weeks at a time without pain- what a different world!!! The rest of the world doesn't know how easy life is if it's free from a migraine. Indocin and imitrex could sometimes ease the pain - bht usually nothing helped. So i finally got Botox injections- oh my- I'm talking three weeks pain free! Thank you poison!!!! But when it wears off.... It's as if my migraines are a monster angry for being kept locked up for too long- oh do they reek havoc on me! But this time - the pain started a bit differently- i suddenly had a piercing pain in my ear- oh great another sinus infection- then it took over my sinus on the one side of my head, and the pain intensified- then the cluster kicked in. I'm on the 18th day now, got more Botox two days ago (takes 3-5 days to work) and I'm at my wits end. Neurologist looked in my ears- their fine. 'oh ok...' They don't feel fine- am I losing my mind? Apparently Three nerves cross paths inside the ear- it's one of the most sensitive areas for some- so a persons migraine can settle there. Aren't we lucky... I now have another member joining my show of pain- just when I was getting a handle on the other cast. I'm not sure how much more I can take!!!

blahblah blah

4/ 4/12 1:55pm

I have the same symptoms. I am actually suffering from a 4 week mirgraine right now. I am going to see an ENT soon and asking them about tubes. Apparently, if you have fluid sitting in your ear and it weighs down on your ear drum long enough you can get a lot of horrible symtoms that sound like what you and I have. (My mother just informed me I had this a lot as a child) I am hoping this will work for me. I hope one day we all feel better and not like little lab rats.

lisa miche

4/ 4/12 2:55pm

dear blahblahblah...I am still dealing with this. I am in the midst of seeing an ENT specialist, a jaw joint (TMJ) specialist and my regular doc on this ear pain/headache issue.

The ENT told me last week that the #1 cause of facial/ear pain is due to TMJ problems (clenching and grinding).

My dentist is making me a nightguard to wear while I sleep to see if this will help. My dentist also told me that my jaw joint is very tense. He told me to try to relax it. That is impossible. I have become so aware of it now that I agree it is tense, but I don't know how to make it relax. A friend told me he should have prescribed a muscle relaxer to take a night. I will ask him about that at my next visit.

The ENT said my ears are perfect. (really? They don't feel perfect!...they hurt like hell!) Especially my right side. The ENT took me off of Fluticasone (a nasal spray for allergies) and put me on Nasonex. He said 8% of people experience headaches from Fluticasone. I have to say that since he did that I haven't had but one bad headache. Maybe the spray is the culprit?

I have a CT scan scheduled for Monday to be sure that there isn't anything going on inside the sinuses the he cannot see. I have already been for an audiogram (a hearing test) to see how the muslces in the ear react, etc. That was completely normal and again perfect.

My suggestion is to see your dentist about the TMJ possibility. TMJ stands for Tempormandibular joint. All signs seem to be pointing to that. If I pay $900 for this nightguard and it doesn't work I will be BEYOND FRUSTRATED!!! Good luck. I hope you find relief.

blahblah blah

4/ 9/12 2:48am

I truly hope all of that works for you! I had nasal surgery- deviated septum & rhinoplasty (to straighten my pathways). I also use the night guard. What's interesting is I have all of the same symptons as you. I will keep you posted. I have my first appt with a neurologist tomorrow. I know we can beat this. We can't be told its nothing. There is something wrong with our ears!

Ms67GTO

4/18/12 1:38am

My heart goes out to all who posted since this was ME years ago. I'm going to throw out some possible causes for these types of pain - I'm not a physician, but have experienced the following:

1) Allergic reactions to foods (This an area most people don't associate with ear pain/migraines)

2) TMJ problems - I don't recommend surgery - get a good custom fit day/night splint/guard. Sometimes, under stress, I wear mine all day and night

3) Check w/neurologist to see if your symptoms warrant a diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia

4) CT/MRI of the sternocleidomastoid bones

5) CT/MRI head and cervical spine

5) Research transient ischemic attack (TIA) - see if symptoms relate to having had an episode.

I suffered horrific migraines AND cluster headaches brought on by a TIA that made my life miserable for 30+ years. Long story short, I was prescribed Adderall XR for my adult ADD. In one month, the migraines had stopped completely and I have not had one since being placed on Adderall XR. Secondly, the cluster headaches remained, however, my neurologist prescribed Verapamil ER (Calcium Channel Blocker) since a few of his patients had had great results. After another month, I was cluster headache-free and haven't had one since. I could fly again without getting off the plane deathly sick. This is only MY experience, but I'm sharing in hopes of helping all who suffer in pain. My prayer for you is that you get a clear and definitive diagnosis, solutions to stop the pain/condition, and that the Lord heals your body as He did mine! PTL!

palmtree4

5/10/12 7:02pm

As I am lying on the couch with severe ear pain and face pain I feel somewhat relieved I am not the only one going through this. But it seems like there is no the right answer. I got the TMJ splint, does nothing. Have had MRI, all good. Ears look great too. Took 3 sumatriptan yesterday, 2 Benadryl and aleve. Doc prescribed fioricet today, helped with head, but ear pain is still severe!!! Only thing that ever works is some kind of shot of pain med. so beyond frustrated!!!! Always 3 days of unproductivity for me. I think pressure in weather sets me off. Good luck everyone, I will continue to check this board.

Unusual ear pain associated with migraine

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