Ear Pain question

[KrisM]

DS is complaining his ear hurts, but it seems to be on the outside, not inside his ear that he's complaining about. He says it hurts when he puts his shirt on, for example.

There doesn't seem to be a bug bite, or any redness or anything else wrong that is obvious to me looking at his ear.

He's only had 1 ear infection and it was nearly 2 years ago, so I don't have much experience with that. Is external pain a symptom of an ear infection? Or something else?

[MaiseyDog]

Has he been swimming lately? Swimmers ear can cause the ear to hurt, especially if the nubby little area at the front of the ear is pressed.

[KrisM]

We had the sprinklers out on Monday. Other than that, he hasn't been swimming in about 2 weeks.

[lilycat88]

DD has had more ear infections than we can count. She had her 3rd set of tubes by age 2 1/2. Her ear has been draining for about 3 days with the latest one and she's been on antibiotics for 2 days. Because of the tubes, she very seldom has any pain when she gets an infection now. That being said... Over the last couple of days with an obvious infection, when asked if her ear hurts, the only part she says does is the outside.

[ThreeofUs]

Most kids point to/talk about the outside of their ears when they have earaches. I'd take a trip to the ped and see if there's an infection going on.

[Tondi G]

could be totally possible that he has an EI! I'd take him in and have them take a look.