Random Ear Pain that is Sharp but Fleeting

Over the last 10 days or so I've been experiencing brief but intense pain in and around my left ear. The 'attacks' seem to come in two forms: either they last 1-2 seconds and are a very painful stabbing pain (7-8 out of 10 on my pain scale) or they're a less painful (4-5 out of 10) semi-throbbing pain that lingers for 1-5 minutes. They're very fleeting pains though: over the course of a 24 hour day I might experience ear pain for anywhere from 0-2 seconds to at most, 5 minutes. The rest of the day I feel fine.

I've experienced this kind of pain for 20+ years, but usually it hits once or twice and then disappears for weeks or months or even years. This is the first time I've experienced multiple 'attacks' over the course of several days though.

I recently had a relatively mild case of COVID followed by coughing up and flushing out yucky gunk for 3 weeks that might have been a sinus infection. I thought maybe the ear pain was related to that. I was prescribed amoxicillin but while that seemed to have rid me of the gunk the ear issue still remains.

I also experienced a very sore neck a few weeks back that felt like a pinched nerve or badly pulled muscle. It hurt so bad that some nights I couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in. I thought it might potentially have been related to that as well, but my neck is about 98% back to normal and the fleeting ear pain remains.

It could be that the ear pain is caused by a sinus infection or a pinched nerve in my neck and just be a lagging symptom that'll go away on its own in time, but figured I'd at least check and see if anyone else had experienced anything similar.

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