Albireo
Registered
After seven wonderful dives over the last week, I began to experience troubling signs of a reverse block on the eighth dive: a pain in my left ear (always the one hardest to clear on the way down) during ascent, with much hissing/crackling noise that continued for several minutes even after getting back on the boat. Afterwards it took a couple hours for the tenderness in my left neck/throat, cheek, and back of earlobe (i.e. eustachian tube) to subside enough for me not to sit there cringing at the stinging pain.
And then, just to ensure my award for idiocy, I repeated the farce with two more dives. Same story on both: no unusual problems on descent, but the same pain, noise, and hours of pain afterwards. Except now the pain hasn't fuuly subsided even after nine hours, and the ear sounds blocked.
After a night's sleep, my flight home starts in 13 hours. What should I do to minimize childlike whimpering in mid-air?
The reason I'm confused about this block is that:
- I have not ever had a history of a reverse block, not even when congested
- As far as I can tell, I am breathing freely out of both nostrils and do not remotely feel congested, beyond the obvious sonic blockage in my left ear
- The pressure is gone from the eardrum itself, the pain is rather in the soft tissues of the lft-front part of my neck, the cheek, and the area around the eustachain tube
I've tried taking Sudafed but while the eardrum pressure is largely gone, the problem seems to be elsewhere. I am armed with both Claritin and a 120mg Sudafed if necessary, but I suspect I have some other damage I don't know about.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
(Apologies for misspellings. I only brought my iPad with me and can't go back to edit!)
And then, just to ensure my award for idiocy, I repeated the farce with two more dives. Same story on both: no unusual problems on descent, but the same pain, noise, and hours of pain afterwards. Except now the pain hasn't fuuly subsided even after nine hours, and the ear sounds blocked.
After a night's sleep, my flight home starts in 13 hours. What should I do to minimize childlike whimpering in mid-air?
The reason I'm confused about this block is that:
- I have not ever had a history of a reverse block, not even when congested
- As far as I can tell, I am breathing freely out of both nostrils and do not remotely feel congested, beyond the obvious sonic blockage in my left ear
- The pressure is gone from the eardrum itself, the pain is rather in the soft tissues of the lft-front part of my neck, the cheek, and the area around the eustachain tube
I've tried taking Sudafed but while the eardrum pressure is largely gone, the problem seems to be elsewhere. I am armed with both Claritin and a 120mg Sudafed if necessary, but I suspect I have some other damage I don't know about.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
(Apologies for misspellings. I only brought my iPad with me and can't go back to edit!)