Thankfully I have not suffered from a burst ear - ruptured tympanic membrane- but have treated a good number of children with one (no divers, though).
Medic13, like DocVikingo, I am a little surprised that you experienced no pain or symptoms at all until the fateful event itself.
My experience is that there is considerable pain prior to the rupture due to stretching of the drum and the pain rapidly subsides afterwards when the ear drum is no linger stretched. It is like lancing a boil!
In childhood otitis media I always understood this to be due to the fact that the bacteria within the middle ear cause a sort of fermentation, producing copious amounts of gas, which cannot escape from the middle ear and so causes the ear drum (tympanic membrane, TM) to bulge outwards. The tension in the TM stretches the nerve endings, thus producing considerable pain.
This is, of course, the cause of the pain experienced when a diver cannot clear the ears on descent, although in this case the TM bulges inwards.
As your anatomy will be little different from the rest of us, Medic13, and yet you suffered no symtoms I wonder whether chrispete's and your own perforation had occurred earlier, on an previous dive or during the descent perhaps? Certainly, an established perforated TM may be entirely symptom-free on the surface, only producing those classical symptoms of vertigo during a dive when cold water enters the middle ear causing convection currents within the layrinth - the organ of balance. I have dicovered a chronic perforation in a few patients after they described these symtoms during syringing to remove excessive ear wax (that had preciously oscurred the TM).
It is also possible that both of you had "subclinical" otitis media prior to the index dive, weakening the integrity and sensitivity of the TM, in which case a painless rupture could possibly occur.
In any case, you are very wise to seek specialist advice and treatment.
I hope it soon resolves.
