I never quite understood why the 737 has an emergency descent checklist, after all its just a high speed descent, maybe a tad closer to Vmo/Mmo - someone finally shed some light for me the other day, and that is because the 737 is a common endorsement with the 737-200, and apparently you need a checklist to do a high speed descent (emergency) in the 200, so all other models also get the checklist...
A high speed descent, or emergency descent (same thing) should not cause ear problems etc.