As others have said, it’s a sinus squeeze, not a reverse block. They can be super painful. I’ve had issues with my sinuses, and even gotten a sinus squeeze during airplane descent. It’s a fairly common problem, you can search it, for pilots that have issues with sinuses they’ll do surgery for it.
For me, I’ve found a couple things help. 1) Neilmed sinus rinse. It’s great, about a week or two before a dive trip I start finding twice a day. Makes a big difference. 2) take Sudafed. Since you can’t clear your sinuses yourself, you need them to be open. If you’re feeling sick, you shouldn’t use Sudafed to make diving an option when it otherwise wouldn’t be; that’s just asking for a reverse block. But to prevent sinus squeeze it helps. 3) watch out for the specific profile you discussed here. After ascending, try not to do a quick repeated descent. I’ll start to feel the pain prickling above my eyebrow and know I need to slow down my descent. Also, I think a head down position makes it worse.
My two cents.
