Struggling with ears

[Tracy1969]

Hello everyone, hope your all well.

I was on here a few days ago regarding my son feeling the cold when he is diving. Luckily now he seems to have mastered this, and although he does still get cold, he doesn't feel it as much as he did before, so thankyou everybody for all your help and advice on that

Unfortunately now though, he has come across another problem.........he is finding it very difficult to clear his ears, when he has his hood and gloves on. He did some more pool training last night with all his equipment on that he would be using on an open water dive....after only a few mins, he came up and said his ears were hurting because he couldn't equalise them......his instructor suggested taking his hood and gloves off and trying again, so he did.........and hey presto, he did it

In fact he was enjoying diving so much that he didn't want to get out of the pool........so please could anyone offer any advice or suggestions on how to deal with this. Without his hood or gloves on, he has no problem whatsoever clearing his ears, but as soon as he puts his gloves and hood on, he struggles. I think (from what his instructor has told me) the problem is, he is struggling to feel his nose to squeeze it, because his fingers are that much more bulkier because of his gloves.......his gloves are Scubapro Everflex 5mm......so when he thinks he is squeezing his nose, he isn't, he is just squeezing the nose part on his mask.........but like I said, without his gloves and hood on, he manages to do this no problem at all........

Any suggestions

 

[Searcaigh]

Hoods can be too tight and cause additional pressure to equalise.

I used to keep my hood off until I reached the bottom then pull it on, oh and I hate 5mm gloves, I can barely operate my camera with them, buy him some 3mm gloves.

 

[Tracy1969]

ok thanks for that.............he is doing his open water dives at Eccleston Delph Centre as this is literally about a 10 min drive from where we live.....will he be ok leaving his hood off until he is under the water?.....and if so, why hasn't his instructor suggested doing this.

As for the gloves, I will get him some more, 3mm as you suggest.............I have been looking at 4th element gloves, what is your opinion on these?

 

[Patoux01]

If the hood is properly sized, just let some water come in, that should be enough.
Don't go on a buying spree, just get used to the gloves, we manage to do it with dry gloves (the ones with a big lining in it, and undergloves), 5mm gloves shouldn't be an issue.

Other method is simply to move over to another equalizing maneuver.

 

[leut1500cb]

I used to have the same type of problem but with out the hood. I would talk to different people about my problem and one suggested that I use an ear drying drop (for swimmers). I use Walgreens brand instant ear-dry the main thing to look for is that it needs to have glycerin in it. When I started to use this I would put drops in about 2-3 hours before I would start my dive (when I got up or even the night before) then another set of drops right as I got to the site to dive. Now I put them in just before I dive for the day. I have not had a problem since I started doing this.

 

[Itsacon]

I have the same thing: without water in my ears, I have a very hard time clearing. Letting water into the hood (and the ear canal) could help. You might want to make two small holes in the hood for this

 

[claymore]

I agree that opening the sides of the hood to get water in the hood and ears would help.
Another issue that may be happening is that with gloves on your son can not get the the nose closed off properly to equalize when using the thumb and pointer finger on one hand.
I have found that sometimes I have to use the pointer finger on both hands, especially with dry gloves, pressing in from both sides to get my nose to seal properly to be able to equalize.

 

[Skulmoski]

This spring in the Red Sea, the water was colder than normal and I was cold during my 3 dives each day. After a few days, I bought a vest sit a hood. It kept me warmer but I had problems with my ears. The hood introduced a new problem in that it sealed my ears making equalization difficult resulting in a squeeze. The root cause was that the hood did not have any small holes. I added a couple of small holes to the top of the hood and equalization was easier on the subsequent dives.

Check you hood for holes and if you do not have any, then adding some holes might alleviate your ear squeeze problem.

GJS

 

[Simon J Rogers]

Personally, I wouldn't advise leaving the hood off until he's at the bottom. I think this could cause panic trying to get it on. Also if you're diving in the UK I imagine it would be uncomfortably cold without the hood, even for a brief period.

Letting water into the hood will help, sometimes I even feel with new divers it can be the phycological aspect of their ears being covered which causes equalisation issues.

It can be difficult to equalise with some 5mm gloves, I would imagine he would be able to let you know, just by feel, if he can't block his nose with the gloves on.

Good luck with resolving the problem.

 

[Tracy1969]

thank you everybody for your advice. In my opinion his hood isn't a good fit, when he puts it on it doesn't quite sit flat on the top of his head (so he looks like his head is shaped like an egg), I did mention this to the sales person when I bought it, but he said that that is quite normal and he was already wearing the smallest size possible......the hood was bought from Northern Diver. It does have a small vent hole already in it at the back, but when ive looked at it closely it doesn't seem to go all the way through the hood (dont know if it should or not).

From what I can gather what everyone is saying, its the hood that is causing the problem not his gloves, is that right? I was going to buy him some 3mm gloves as suggested in the first reply, but im wondering now if just putting some holes in the hood around his ear area, might be the best thing to do