Airplane earaches

Dear Reader,

What you're experiencing during air travel is called barotrauma, which occurs when the air pressure in your middle ear chamber and in the environment are not equal. In addition to flying, pressure changes also occur during scuba diving and driving in the mountains. The symptoms of barotrauma include:

• temporarily impaired hearing
• ringing in the ears
• dizziness
• pain (such as your earaches)

The pressure in the airplane cabin changes during take-off and landing (cabins are not pressurized to preserve the air pressure that existed on the ground). When the air pressure changes in the surrounding environment, the Eustachian tube, which connects the middle ear to the back of your nasal cavity, will allow air to leave or enter the middle ear to even out the pressure difference. But if your Eustachian tube is blocked due to congestion or some other problem, the pressure difference is not corrected and barotrauma results.

During take-off and landing, you can try:

• swallowing
• yawning
• chewing gum
• sucking on hard candy
• exhaling while holding your nostrils shut and closing your mouth

All of these might help open up the Eustachian tube and allow air to flow in or out. If you must fly with a cold, try taking a decongestant an hour before take-off and, if it's a long flight, again an hour before landing.

If symptoms of barotrauma, such as impaired hearing or pain, persist after a few hours of landing, see your health care provider. Treatment may involve the above-mentioned exercises or decongestants to help open the Eustachian tube. For severe barotrauma, sometimes antibiotics might need to be taken to avoid an ear infection; only very rarely is a surgical opening of the eardrum needed to treat this.

While your earaches during flying are annoying, they probably aren't an indication of severe barotrauma if they go away within a few hours of landing. So the next time you travel, try the yawning or breathing tips mentioned above for a more comfortable flight.