I flew last week and had a strange experience. My ears didn't pop on the decent and it was almost 12 hours until I was normal again. I fly a lot and this is the first time that ever happened. Only thing I can think of is I just started using my new Bose noise cancellation headphones. Do you think they had something to do with it?
HP - doubt it was the headphones, same thing happened to Ev when she flew last week with a cold. It's pretty normal.
When i get that sensation , i take big gulps of air & my ears usually pop . If i drive across Md rt # 68 ( + & - 1000' elevation changes ) too often , my ears pop , get sore & i get the sensation you are describing .
Thanks for stating the obvious I fly a lot and know about chewing gum, eating food or mints etc. I also know how to pop my ears other ways besides swallowing which is why chewing gum, mints, food etc helps. Figured it was either the cold weather or some other unique experience. A friend last night said the headphones might have played a factor since they cover my whole ears and wouldn't allow air to escape.
On the way down the pressure stays the same in the middle ear (low) and since the eustachian tube from the back of the throat to the ear is one way you have to force air back up in there. Its perfectly safe (and we were taught in the AirForce) to do a gentle valsalva manuever. Pinch your nose and blow. Not like you're trying to shoot ear wax out of your ear. Just slowly build up pressure in your nasal cavity until your ear "pops". all it does is equalize the pressure. When someone dives they do it to build the pressure to match the water pressure. When ascending the pressure in your ear just needs to escape. Rocking your lower jaw side to side (the old chewing gum trick) or tilting your head to each side and massaging the side / front of your neck helps pressure escape. You should never valsalva on the way up. That just makes the problem worse. some say to use medicated nose sprays but your sinus passages actually become addicted to those very quickly! If all else fails a decongestant will help get whatever's blocking the tube out of the way. all this from taking altitude chamber training every 7 years! Hahahaha
What you NEVER want is a blocked sinus cavity! I've seen one in person. We started descending and all of a sudden this one guy starts screaming and holding his hand to his face. He was sitting near the utility hydraulic system so my first thought was we had a leak over there. That system runs at 3,000 psi and small holes could make a stream that could cut steel. I ran over and pulled his hands from his face. I couldn't see any injury but he was still screaming like someone had just shoved a ice-pick in his eye! I called the engineer and we leveled off and increased the cabin pressure so it'd feel like we were back up at altitude with full cabin pressure. I told the guy to just start making faces and massage his face and nose. After 5 minutes or so I swear I heard the pop inside his head! He just started bawling and shaking from the enorphins from that much pain. I know it hurt but it also scared the hell out of me. I'm still afraid to fly when I have a cold.
I've had problems like that in unpressurized aircraft at 10-12,000 feet and falling asleep during cruise. If I'm asleep my ears don't seem pop fast enough if we decend fast. I wokeup when we touched down once and I couldn't get my ears to equalize for over 12 hours. It hurt like hell!
Sinus squeeze. Had one scuba diving with a cold in Crystal River FL. That was some intense pain. My mask was entirely filled with blood when I surfaced, and I wore a raccoon mask double shiner for a week and a half. Kinda threw a wet blanket on my dive trip. :down:
A decongestant before you fly will help... Take one whether you need it or not.. Speaking of the blocked sinuses... It happened to me once. I thought I was having a freaking aneurism. I'd have hung myself with my boot laces, but didn't think I could stand. Seriously, I made peace because I thought I was going to die... There was an ambulance waiting for me when we landed. To this day, I'm still freaked out to fly because of it...
I have found that if I wear my Bose NC headphones from the time I get in the plane until after we land, that I have less issues with my ears popping or not popping. Not quite sure why, but that is my experience. Otherwise, I did like Huey said, pinch your nose and blow. Note, that also works when you have a cold and you can't breathe thru your nose...if you do this same excersise, it will clear for a breath or two...sometimes it's just long enough to brake the annoying sense of not being able to breathe thru your nose.
