Ear pain

Otalgia or an earache or ear pain is pain in the ear. Primary otalgia is ear pain that originates inside the ear. Referred otalgia is ear pain that originates from outside the ear.

Otalgia is not always associated with ear disease. It may be caused by several other conditions, such as impacted teeth, sinus disease, inflamed tonsils, infections in the nose and pharynx, throat cancer, and occasionally as a sensory aura that precedes a migraine.

Primary otalgia

Ear pain can be caused by disease in the external, middle, or inner ear, but the three are indistinguishable in terms of the pain experienced.

External ear pain may be:

  • Mechanical: trauma, foreign bodies such as hairs, insects or cotton buds.
  • Infective (otitis externa): Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas, Candida, herpes zoster, or viral Myringitis. (See Otitis externa)
  • Middle ear pain may be:

  • Mechanical: barotrauma (often iatrogenic), Eustachian tube obstruction leading to acute otitis media.
  • Inflammatory / infective: acute otitis media, mastoiditis.
  • Podcasts:

    PLAYLIST TIME:

    Ideology

    by: Billy Bragg

    When one voice rules the nation
    Just because they're top of the pile
    Doesn't mean their vision is the clearest
    The voices of the people
    Are fallin' on deaf ears
    Our politicians all become careerists
    They must declare their interests
    But not their company cars
    Is there more to a seat in parliament
    Than sitting on your arse
    And the best of all this bad bunch
    Is shouting to be heard
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing
    Outside the patient millions
    Who put them into power
    Expect a little more back for their taxes
    Like school books, beds in hospitals
    And peace in our bloody time
    All they get is old men grinding axes
    Who've built their private fortunes
    On the things they can rely
    The courts, the secret handshake
    The Stock Exchange and the old school tie
    For God and Queen, and Country
    All things they justify
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing
    God bless the civil service
    The nations saving grace
    While we expect democracy
    They're laughin' in our face
    And although our cries get louder
    The laughter gets louder still
    Above the sound of ideologies clashing
    Above the sound of ideologies
    Above the sound of ideologies




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