Actually, beleive it or not, the 2k range is where the ears start becoming most sensitive naturally. So what you are feeling is quite normal. Assuming that you aren't cutting glass with your mixes.
But another note, alot of important sonic information is also in this range. So I wouldn't nessessarly know about cutting freqs right away because my ears hurt. And beleive you me, anything that produces sound makes my ears hurt, litterally. I was diagnosed with hypersensitivty of the ears, so it makes it especially dangerous for me to sustain loud noises (Which why I can't do live).
For that I simply turn down my monitor gain for a second and really start to think about the draw backs of cutting if something is problematic. Especially in that range. In fact, this is about where your presence in vocals is found, added presence in distortion guitars, occasionally some punch in a kick drum is found here. It would be more afraid to mess up here than I would at the extreme high and low end.
At the same time, things that are "warm" in nature tend to ease up on 2k. So if I wanted to warm something up, my approach used to be subtractive, but I found a more effective and precise way of doing it. This is simply Bob katz ying/yang EQing technique which I had been aware of a few years before he mentioned it to me.
It basicly states that along the EQ spectrum, every frequency above the "absolute" middle has an equal and opposite frequency to sort of act as a counter balance.
So if you wanted to control the effect of what feels to be too much 2k, then you would maybe reduce that area slightly about 1 or 2 db and then raise 1 or 2 db on it's opposite end. I believe that's around the low mid respectively.
So in the end there's a less dramatic use of EQ and you're still able to retain the natural aspect of your sound. You're not resulting to huge dips and cuts that you would find in subtractive EQ (which has always been the problem in cheaply designed EQs, both digital and analog).
It just really comes down to ear traing and learning when and when not to be afraid to certain EQ situations. But to really do that well would mean to get a hold of good reference mixes *before* mastering. Cause I've definitly been a part of mixes that where painful to my ears when the guy was mixing and then it shows up on CD and radio and suddenly it dosn't hurt anymore.
Which always seems to prove my theory that good mastering engineers are a great mixing engineer's secret weapon.
I kinda like it. It's sort of like the crack cocaine of frequencies though, at least with a Pultec 
).. Thanks for the great info...