Ear Infection Symptoms

Like we mentioned the ear infection symptoms of both an inner ear and outer ear canal infection are just slightly different. This means it can be quiet difficult to diagnose or make the distinction yourself

Add to this that a middle ear infection commonly affects young children who are unable to tell you about the symptoms they experience. Even slightly older children have difficulty describing what they feel

General middle ear infection
symptoms often include:

(Severe) ear pain, but this not always occurs
Dizziness or loss of balance
Fever and vomiting
Loss of appetite
Itch in the infected ear
A feeling of blockage or pressure in the ear
Hearing problem or muffled hearing, sometimes even temporary loss of hearing (can last a few days)
Sometimes the eardrum bursts. This lets out infected fluids and the ear becomes runny for a few days

Ear pain is often caused by pressure on the eardrum; a burst eardrum often relieves the pain. This is nothing to really worry about and usually heals within a few weeks after the infection clears

Ear infection symptoms in young children

In addition to the symptoms above, in case of very young children who can not tell you what's going on sometimes you can tell by their behavior, in this case ear infection symptoms may include:

Pulling or tugging at one or both ears
Difficulty sleeping
Unusual irritability
Not playful When children are in pain they are not as playful
Non responsive When they are in pain they are sometimes not responding to your attempts to satisfy their needs
They don't react to quiet sounds or you notice other signs that they don't hear so good such as sitting too close to the television or being absent-minded
Crying from pain A type of crying which you have learned to recognize as from pain and not from hunger, being tired or something else

At night the pain will be worse because you or your child are in a flat position and it is more difficult to drain the mucus

A small test...

A useful small test to try to find out which kind of infection you're dealing with: When you wiggle your ear without pain, you probably have an infection in the middle ear. When you do have pain, your Eustachian tubes may be infected

Important note:

A Simple Earache caused by the first stages of infection or inflammation will generally go away within 24 hours. If it doesn't go away or even gets worse and you notice a High Fever, even after trying one of our suggested methods, it is better you call your doctor to seek treatment. Especially with children it is important you do not wait too long!

The viruses and bacteria that cause it are usually taken care of by the immune system. Sometimes after an infection, a child cannot hear well for a while. If this lasts for 3 to 4 months call your doctor. Children need to hear to learn how to talk

Symptoms of outer ear canal infection or swimmer's ear:

Ear pain
Irritation an itch in the infected ear canal
Discharge from the infected ear
Pain getting more severe by movement of the ear lobe or the jaw
Temporary reduction in hearing
Slight fever
Inflammation in the ear

As you can see most of these are almost the same as middle ear infection symptoms. The difference is not so easy to tell. Their causes however are quiet different, as we will discuss on the Causes of Ear Infections page

More of our ear infection pages