Pain behind right ear

[silvercat]

My 7 yr old has been complaining about this off and on for a while now. Seems to be a shooting sort of pain - quite sharp but it comes and goes. It's definitely behind the ear, not inside, and lower rather than upper. Any ideas what this could be?

Could it be infected skin pores, like a boil sort of thing? It is quite common to get boils behind the ear, and if boil was deep or small there might not be much to see from the surface, even a small boil could cause quite a bit of pain though. Look to see if there's any redness or blackheads to be seen. If so you could try cleaning the skin with alcohol or TCP.

Otherwise I don't know what it might be.

Dental and jaw pain can be felt in the ears. Worth getting a dentist's check up then - if that doesn't find anything - see your GP. It doesn't sound like anything worrying but worth geting checked out if it's dragging on.

(I'm a GP)

Has he got fever/is he unwell? There is a bone behind the ear and if they have pain in that area if you press on that bone it could indicate an ear infection getting out of hand. I would have it checked by GP, if this is the case, then it is quite serious and needs immediate medical attention.

I think dikkertjedap is thinking of mastoiditis. She's right that this can be serious but I don't think that's what your son has got because his pain has been coming and going for some time.