Also, if you know your ears will block, take Afrin before the flight, or
early on - It will also help if the ears are already plugged, followed by
blowing out as described below. I would be sure to carry some whenever I
flew!

Harvey

Calum,
Assuming you're talking about pain due to pressure, what she needs to do
is
equalize the pressure between her inner ear and the outside air in the
cabin. There are several ways to do this. The simplest are to swallow
or
yawn. Those physical movements cause the air pressure in the ear to
escape
and relieve the pain.

If that doesn't work, the next thing to try is called a valsalva. It's
very
simple and works in most cases (it's what I do). Hold your nose, close
your
mouth, and pressurize your lungs so you'd be blowing air if you had your
mouth or nose open. It may feel like you have to press with your lungs
quite a bit but it should eventually work. You can practice this on the
ground to see what it feels like, but don't get carried away or you may
hurt
your ears.

In all the above cases you need to repeat it and stay ahead of the
pressure
changes. It's easier to do them a little bit and often rather than wait
for
the pain to be bad and then try to do it all at once.

Good luck and let us know how your wife gets on.

Cheers,
Shawn

Yes, Shawn has it just right...as an airman who flew some 13,000
hours in unpressurized aircraft with problem Eustachian
tubes(sp?), I've learned what works and what doesn't.

These tubes connects the throat with the inner ear on each side.
The tubes are sort of 'pursed' at the throat end so that air can
easily pass out of the inner ear but cannot as easily get back
in. This causes problems when higher air pressure tries to get
'into the ear' as it does on descent. This causes the ear drum to
be pushed inward causing pain (and damage if it progresses far
enough)

It's always worse if the person has a cold as the throat lining
swells and makes the opening smaller (or harder to open at least)

As the other poster said you need to practice 'valsalva'. One
small caution here, practicing valsalva while you have a cold can
force germ ridden mucus into the Eustachian tubes (so they say).
I've NEVER been troubled with this even though I had to valsalva
'every time I descended'. (for 26 YEARS) I could not sleep while
descending either because they wouldn't ever clear that way. I
ALWAYS warn the Flight Attendant to wake me before descent, you
should too (for sure)

You MUST 'keep on top of it' too, it's very much easier to 'clear
your ears' if they're only slightly 'blocked'. As soon as you
feel a slight reduction in sound during descent, hold your nose
and apply gentle pressure, keep it up and keep slowly increasing
the pressure till you feel/hear BOTH ears 'pop'. One can (will)
pop before the other but you must keep applying the pressure till
the other one also pops. It seems that long slowly increasing
pressure works best, and especially when the blockage is of short
duration...don't wait to start it...the longer you wait before
starting valsalva the harder it will be to get air into those
tubes...if all else fails, tell the Flight Attendant about your
trouble...you may need her later. Good luck...I feel for you,
it's not a nice problem to have for sure...



"Calum" wrote in message
...
My wife suffers from sore ears during flight and we are facing two
commercial flights in one afternoon which she is not looking forward
to.
Does anyone have any good tips to avoid the pain?

Thanks in advance.

Calum




--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)