What does this mean?
Just in front of your ear and below it lies the largest salivary gland in the face. It spreads over the jaw joint and along the back edge of the lower jawbone, and it also covers the area under your earlobe. Its duct opens into the mouth through your cheek, level with your upper back teeth. When the gland grows, the swelling sits exactly over the jaw joint, which is why it is so often mistaken for a problem in the joint.
What tells the two pictures apart is how they look. A swollen salivary gland can be seen from the outside; it pushes the earlobe slightly up and out, rounds off the sharp line at the angle of the lower jaw and feels like a full mass under your fingers. A problem in the jaw joint produces no fullness that can be seen from the outside; what you notice there is pain that grows as you open your mouth, a noise from the joint, and tenderness over a narrow spot in front of the ear. A swelling that grows and shrinks with meals, one that is on both sides at once, and one that grows slowly over weeks all point down very different paths.
A swelling in this area can have two quite different stories. One that comes up over a few days, is painful and has red, hot skin over it suggests inflammation. A mass that grows slowly over weeks, is painless, firm and barely shifts when you move it with your fingers is a finding that should not be left to wait just because it does not hurt. The nerves that move the face run through this gland; if, along with the mass, the eyelid on the same side will not close or the corner of the mouth droops, that is a further sign that needs assessing.
A swelling in front of the ear can come up for reasons as different as inflammation, a blockage or a mass. The headings below are not a diagnosis; they show which possibilities are being weighed against each other.
Likely causes
What helps at home?
- Write down when the swelling started, whether it changes size with meals and whether it hurts; those three details settle much of the question.
- Do not keep squeezing a firm, painless mass; squeezing will not make it smaller, it irritates the surrounding tissue and it changes how the area looks at the examination.
- Do not try to burst or drain the swelling yourself; interfering with a swelling whose source is not known can carry inflammation into the spaces around it.
- Do not use leftover antibiotics on your own; medication started before inflammation and a mass have been told apart may do nothing and it holds up the assessment.
- If the swelling has lasted longer than three weeks or is still growing
- If the mass is firm, painless and does not shift when you move it with your fingers
- If you are having difficulty closing your eye on that side, or the corner of your mouth is drooping
- If the skin has turned red and hot, you have a high temperature, or pus is coming into your mouth
- If you cannot open your mouth or are having difficulty swallowing
Frequently asked questions
- Is it my jaw joint that has swollen?
- Problems in the jaw joint most often do not produce a swelling you can see from the outside; they show themselves through pain, noise and a limit on how far you can open. If there is a fullness in front of the ear that you can take hold of and that lifts the earlobe, the salivary gland and the structures around it are thought of first. The two can also be present together, so telling them apart is done with an examination and, where needed, a scan.
- Could it be mumps?
- Where a swelling comes up quickly along with a high temperature and most often takes in both sides, viral causes come to mind; mumps is one of them, and it can still occur in people who have been vaccinated. Where the swelling is on one side, grows slowly and comes with no temperature, other possibilities come to the fore. This is sorted out by your history, the examination and, if needed, tests; if something infectious is being considered, it is worth telling the clinic before you come in.
- It does not hurt, can I wait?
- In this area, the absence of pain is not a reassuring finding. A good many of the masses that start in the gland begin painlessly and grow slowly; not having any pain is the most common reason people wait. Any swelling that lasts longer than three weeks or that is growing should be assessed, whether or not it hurts.
This content is for general information and does not replace an in-person examination. Symptoms overlap between conditions, and a diagnosis can only be made clinically.