What Is Airplane Ear? What Are The Dangers Of Airplane Ear?
Airplane ear happens when the dry environment causes the eardrum to lose moisture, making it stiff and unable to flex properly. Airplane ear can cause temporary deafness.
This stiffness means the eardrum can’t adjust to the changes in pressure, leading to the intense pain many travelers experience.
Until the ear “pops”, the pain may linger for the longest, and oftentimes it can affect both ears and one may pop before the other and until both pops hearing may never come to normalcy.
During this pain, it usually feels like the ear wants to implode and you can barely hear your surroundings, some people feel unbalanced while walking because the ear is very vital for balance.
This pain on rare occasions can linger for up to a few minutes to a whole week before both ears finally pops.
Some people have seen faster improvement in enabling their ears to pop by intermittent drinking water, chewing gum, or forcing themselves to yawn –yawning seems to be the most effective, however, it comes with slight pain but if the yawning pulls through till the end, the ear usually pops.
Finally, other remedies could be, engaging in chewing and yawning during take-off and landing trying not to sit close to the engines of the plane, and allowing free airflow passage across the ear.