sleeping upright - in pain?

[Runnerd]

Ds (7mo) has never slept through, always woken at least a couple of times a night if not more but it was liveable and we were making progress but it's now got much worse... He's had a nasty virus for the last 2 weeks and since it kicked off he's ended up spending the majority of the night sleeping on me or dh.

Daytime naps and the first couple of hrs of bedtime he does in his cot fine as usual, but then he wakes at say 9pm and we can't resettle him. We thought it was the congestion/coughing but he's mostly better now but still tugging his ears whenever he's laid down late at night.

We saw a dr last week and she checked his ears and there was no infection then but is it worth going back for another look? If it's not his virus and not an ear infection, any other bright ideas? Pretty sure it's not teething or wind and head of cot is raised. He sleeps like a log on us and we regularly try and put him back down but as soon as he's flat he tugs his ears and wakes up.

He is still a bit under the weather so do we just need to chill out and hope when he's fully better he'll sleep alone and flat again? I feel like we've been to the Dr's so often with him I don't want to go if it's viral that they can't do anything for anyway...