Well, I'm a little disconcerted about the fact that the Lidocaine helps the pain in my mouth for a short (a very short) time, but it has no effect on my ear/neck pain. I thought the ear/neck thing was just like a weird nerve reaction of the pain in my mouth, but now I don't know. I thought numbing my mouth would make it all stop, but it doesn't. =( Advil still works, but it's becoming less effective (probably because I've been taking so much of it). It wears off pretty quickly now.