I'm curious, how do you mean painful? I work in an office cube farm, and it's often noisy/chatty enough that I find it hard to concentrate without headphones or something. But I find most earbuds and cheap headphones uncomfortable to wear for more than half an hour or so, so I bought a big set of over-the-ear Bluetooth headphones that are great to wear all day long. Might be worth a try if that's your problem.