Once again, I’ve had a long flight on a commercial airline and have come down with a cold. Yeah, I could hear some passengers sniffling and coughing and sneezing. Good ol’ recirculated air full of germs!
Only a couple of hours ago my right Eustachian tube decided to become blocked. I’ve taken some cough medicine and a Sudafed, I’ve poured hydrogen peroxide in my ear (which I knew wouldn’t help, since it’s clogged inside), and followed that up with some alcohol. I think I’ll stand in a hot shower and breathe some steam for a while.
I’ve really got to stop people from breathing on the airplane.
Steam always helps me. I make myself a nice cup of tea or broth, and breathe it as much as drink it. Also, my heating pad and hot water bottle are my FRIENDS.
It generally takes me 12 to 24 hours to regain what I call “ear equilibrium.”
When the plane reaches altitude and I look around, nobody else appears to be suffering. Or even yawning in the attempt to equalize the pressure in their ears.
Me? I’m yawning so hard I’m making myself gag. It doesn’t work. My ears don’t like flying. (They snap and pop when I drive forty miles north…so slight an elevation that it doesn’t even register on other peoples’ maps.)
I hate it. I don’t know where I got these ears. I don’t know why they are so &%$#ing sensitive. Nobody else on the plane seems to have any issues at all; even the infants are sleepy or smiling.
And here’s Audrey! Grimacing in pain, trying to yawn to get my ears to pop back to normal…feeling like I’m underwater while everybody else is on dry land.
I don’t get ear infections, or even earaches; I just can’t freakin’ handle changes in air pressure. I grew up on the coast and people ask me if I go diving. I just laugh at the very idea.
elevators, vacuum cleaners, the slightest bit of air pressure change. my allergist told me that it could be allergies… or just the way my ears are built since i’ve had this since i was a wee kid. i had lots of ear aches/infections and sore throats until the tonsil/adn. operation at 7. the sore throats have continued but not ears except for altitude/airpressure thing.
once i learned how to clear my ears, i no longer want to scream through landings. i have to clear my ears quite a bit.
Oxymetazoline nasal spray can often help an acutely plugged eustacian tube, if other clearance mechanisms like valsalva maneuvers and steam don’t.
And yes, you use it in your nose, not your ear. Just make sure a good dose goes thru the nostril into the back of your throat on the plugged ear side, and sniffle and snort it around back there to hell and back.
Since the pressure is on the inside I tried a ‘reverse valsalva’, only it didn’t work. As I said, it seemed to clear up overnight. Mostly, anyway. But now my other ear is blocked. I found some Sudafed with pseudoephedrine, but I don’t know if it’s working or just keeping it from getting worse.