You probably should get your ears cleaned and as mentioned above, Q-tips aren't the way to do that. I'm not sure if you need a prescription for this but pharmacies carry liquid-based solutions to rinse out your ear, or you can have a doctor do it for you. In either of your ears, does it sound as though you hear as though you had a metal bucket on your head? In other words, hearing your body's own sounds through your ears? I ask this because you stated tilting your head to one side would relieve the ticking sound.

Have all of these symptoms and high sensitivity been around for many years or only recently?

The most accurate way to figure out if you do have a ruptured ear drum or a middle ear infection is by using an otoscope or tympanometry. The former is a medical device that is found in every doctor's office. The latter isn't found in your regular GP doctor's office as it's a specialty device but it would definitely be in the office of an ENT doctor. I'm not sure if you can buy one for personal use but if so, they're not cheap. If I still have them, I'll post a few pictures of the outputs of a tympanometry from some of the clinical audiological courses I took.

If you wear ear muffs for a short while, then there shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure how great your sensitivity is, so cheaper ones may not do the trick and you'd want the ones that cover all of your outer ear.