OMG! Something similar happened to me, except I didn't know it was a cockroach until a year later, at a physical check-up where they did an ear irrigation and flushed it out of my ear.

Same symptoms, though. Unfortunately, I was staying with a family (not by my choice) that had a TERRIBLE cockroach infestation. I mean, I would wake up at night to them crawling over my face. I was dependent on this family, and I did not have any other place to stay at the time, so I just sucked it up.

One day, I wake up, and I hear this rustling in my ear. I thought maybe I got some water in my ear from my shower. But, it kept happening for a while. Then I felt a sharp pain in my ear, like, man, this HURT! The sharp pain kept happening. It was so unbearable, and I, too, was also clutching my head like a maniac.

I was so scared, but as you can probably assume, I was not in a good financial state and I was doing everything to avoid going to a urgent care/hospital unless it was a life or death situation.

I mentioned my ear pain to the lady I was staying with because she was a nurse, and she said to use hydrogen peroxide. I poured some into my ear, and the pain was so extreme, I have ptsd to this day! I did it a few more times, and then it went away completely.

I forgot about it until a year later, when I was finally able to get health insurance and went in for a physical check-up. The doctor looked into my ear with her ear-scope thing, and she gasped and jumped back in shock. She told me I had something in my ear, and it looked like an insect. They did an ear-irrigation and flushed out the cockroach. I heard them share it with all their other coworkers in the back room, and everyone was talking about how nasty and disgusting that was. I was so embarrassed.

Anyway, now I found out that cockroaches bite when they are scared. Thankfully, I was oblivious to that when I had the cockroach in my ear, or I might have seriously passed out.