Skin is the soft outer tissue covering vertebrates. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton have different developmental origin, structure and chemical composition. The adjective cutaneous means of the skin (from Latin cutis, skin).
Sorry to hear about your problem. The numbness in the ear can be due to variety of reasons. Some of them are. Diabetes. Peripheral neuropathy. Sensory nerve trauma. Ear infection. Cold. Cerebro vascular accident. Ear injury etc. As there is no history of trauma, so ear injury and sensory nerve trauma can be ruled out. Diabetes can be detected by undergoing a blood glucose test. This numbness can be caused by a preceding throat infection which can result in ear infection leading to numbness.
The sensation of burning in, on or around your ear may cause it to feel swollen, inflamed and tender. It may be warm to the touch. Many causes of burning and inflammation are attributed to an infection, which occurs when bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms enter your body. The immune response to these microorganisms is responsible for the typical symptoms of infection, such as redness, warmth and swelling.