Ear infection

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reikopm

reikopm

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Darn, I just developed an ear infection and I'm due to fly out in 4 days (Feb 18).
It is both an outer and slight middle ear infection. I am on prescribed ear drops and antibiotic pills.

I'm afraid I will not be totally cured by the time I'm ready to fly. If so, what can I do or watch out for on the plane when trying to clear my ears? The doc said to use a nasal spray like Afrin.

Thank you, -R
 
Oh that's no fun - sorry to hear that. I was all clogged up and flew 2 weeks ago (on business). As the airplane descended for landing I had some excruciating pain, and had a hard time hearing for a couple of days. When I flew home a week later it wasn't quite as bad. I still wasn't 100% when I went diving (locally) this last weekend. I took some sudafed an hour before diving just in case. I had a little bit of problems clearing my ears on the first dive, but was just fine after that.

My best advice would be to wait to see how you feel when the airplane descends - that will guide you on whether you'll be comfortable diving. As far as relieving pain when flying - the ascending wasn't the problem, just descending. I took a dose of Vicks Dayquil on the return trip a half an hour before landing and didn't do too badly. My friends doctor recommended pink Benadryl, so that's what he takes every time now after having a particularly painful trip. I guess everybody is different, but chewing didn't work for me to relieve the pressure, and neither did the Valsalva maneuver. Yawning almost continuously during descent is what helped me the most.

You might cross-post this over in the Marine Science & Physiology --> Diving Medicine forum (or do a search) - I've gotten some excellent medical advice there.

Jerry
 
Disclaimer: I AM NOT A DOCTOR - I am speaking from personal experience.

I don't know about others, but to me, clearing my ears while flying is the same as clearing under water. Flying shouldn't affect the outer ear infection, other than the dryness of the air in the plane (unless it's really nasty and has your ear canal inflamed or oozy), however I would be careful about diving with it. The fortunate thing about having an outer ear infection that's not oozy or swollen is that it seems to clear up a bit faster than a middle or inner ear infection, as long as you keep it dry and follow your prescription regimen. Also, there's less chance of damage to the hearing mechanisms (if you don't count the possibility of scar tissue between the outer and middle ear).

Are the drops anti-inflammatory (or steroidal), antibiotic, or a combination of both? You might want to ask your doctor about anti-inflammatory drops if your ears are itchy or swollen. I wasn't diving when I had my outer ear infection, but I do remember that ibuprofen helped with the swelling/itching.

Good luck.
 
Please be careful diving. The meds will likely clear up the symptoms in a few days, however, from personal experience (painful experience at that) I learned the hard way that with sinus and ear infections, just because the symptoms are gone it doesn't mean you are good to go for diving.

I had an infection that I thought was all taken care of about two weeks before a trip. I had no problems equalizing and no pain the first two days. But the first dive on day three I had a very severe barotrauma in the last 5 feet of ascent. It was frontal sinus and we thought it was air in a filling because the pain was very bad and in my jaw and up the whole side of my face. It was severe. The Doctor told me it can take 4-6 weeks for everything to really heal up after an infection and although fine for everyday activity, it can be a problem and cause serious damage if you dive. I was close to a ruptured sinus.

Please go back to your ENT before you get on the plane or dive and make sure that you will be ok. Self medicating with decongestants of anti-inflamatories to get through the dive doesn't always work. I had first hand experience finding out that all though it may have been fine on x number of previous dives, there will be that one dive that it doesn't work.
 
whole foods carries a range of effective herb-based ear drops. Most effective for divers is garlic and goldenseal in an olive oil base. 12 hours usually is enough for this to completely wipe out the infection. Make your own--smash a couple of raw garlic cloves, place in olve oil, strain toremove garlic after 1 hour, put drops in your ear.
 
I didn't read all the replies.....

But watch our for Afrin. That stuff is pretty strong and becomes addicting.
 
reikopm:
Darn, I just developed an ear infection and I'm due to fly out in 4 days (Feb 18).
It is both an outer and slight middle ear infection. I am on prescribed ear drops and antibiotic pills.

I'm afraid I will not be totally cured by the time I'm ready to fly. If so, what can I do or watch out for on the plane when trying to clear my ears? The doc said to use a nasal spray like Afrin.

Thank you, -R
Click to expand...
So reikopm: how did you do?

Jerry
 
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