I am sure all of us are aware that you don’t fly when you have a cold. When you have a cold, swollen membranes in the ear can block the Eustachian tube. The eardrum can become stretched due to unequal pressure (i.e. on a flying plane), creating a great amount of pain. In severe cases the middle ear can fill with fluid, resulting in an ear infection. Or the eardrum can even burst. Ouch…
However, how many of us actually call in sick because of a cold? Catching a cold is a norm in this industry; you catch at least one every year. We deal with hundreds or even thousands of different people on a daily basis and with more exposure to the public, your chance of catching a disease is higher than the general population. I have posted an article earlier about how to prevent flu onboard. I did follow the tips in that article; however, I still caught a cold last week
I booked off for a week because of that cold. It was a minor cold. I started with a scratchy throat, then I lost my voice for a day or two, followed by a stuffy and runny nose, and some coughing and sneezing. (a few boxes of Kleenexes were gone) I didn’t go to work because I didn’t want others to catch my germs. On the 6th day, I felt much better and most of the cold symptoms were gone except for occasional sneezing and a few coughs every now and then. My stuffing nose was almost gone and I decided to go back to work. Then this hit me…
When I arrived at the aircraft, some symptoms came back. Wonder if this was a coincidence or my body was warning me not to work. I had a few sneezes and a runny nose. Then, my sinuses hurt and nose became really stuffed again during ascent. My ears blocked once we reached cruising altitude and for the whole flight, I have lost half of my hearing ability.
During descent, my ears were even more blocked and started to hurt. I tried the followings:
Valsalva maneuver – This is the best known method to clear blocked ears onboard. You pinch your nose and close your mouth while exhaling through your nostrils. If this method is done appropriately and is successful, you can hear popping noise in your ears. This is achieved by equalizing the pressure inside your ears. I used this method periodically during descent and my ears popped a few times. My ears didn’t clear right away following this method. However, this definitely relieved the pain in my ears and after a few “pops”, my right ear was clear.
Chew gum – Another well-known method. Did it work? Not on me. I chewed two gums vigorously at the same time and my ears didn’t clear up.
Funky headphones method – I am sure many travelers have seen/used this method. You put a wad of hot, wet paper towels in a foam cup and put it over your ear. (This looks really funny. If you don’t know why that passenger is putting a foam cup over their ear, you might think they are being psycho, or they are playing telephone with some imaginary kids)
The steam from the damp cloth helps to relief the pain in the ear. This feels really good but, doesn’t help much neither. However, I used this method, for the sake of doing something to help myself.
Yawn – the most primitive method but, hard to do. Yawning is an involuntary reflex, meaning that you have no control over this action and you cannot manipulate it. So, basically, you open your mouth as much as you could, and do some deep inhalation and exhalation with the intention to stabilize the pressure in both ears. This could be tiring and make sure you do this privately.
Sip hot liquid – This is intended to make you swallow and clear up the pressure inside your ears. This doesn’t work if you have a bad cold. However, this works well when you are not sick and pressure builds up in your ears during descent. Your ears will pop right away.
So, my left ear is still blocked. It pops every now and then and when I perform a several Valsalva maneuver. However, this only provides temporally relief of the pressure.
Related articles:
More on blocked ears
Stay flu-free onboard