Ear Problem / Pain

[joe27march]

Finally, after a lot of work and begging my wife got certified, however, during the process we discovered sometimes she has huge issues clearing her ears.

Sometimes, it is just difficult and sometimes it is not possible. She has even tried to clear the whole way down. She descends slowly and stops when there is an issue, goes up tries to clear, then descends again, and we have even returned to the boat due to her lack of clearing. She has never had an issue ascending

One person suggested she might need tubes. Any assistance would be great as she now loves to SCUBA (minus the sharks, but that is another issue to work).

 

[g1138]

Have her try pinching her nose and swallowing.
Or opening her jaw, hitching it forward and "yawning"
There's plenty of techniques out there. And the more you practice the easier it gets.

The usual method of pinching the nose and blowing isn't really a good technique in my mind. It's very easy to over do it and hurt yourself, and it ties up your hands.
I assume that's the method your wife is trying.

Find a hands free technique that works on land, practice it. And hybrid it with a nose pinch underwater. Then slowly try to work to where you're doing it hands free. That's how I overcame an issue of my right ear not clearing.

Most important thing for her to remember is to clear early and often. Start before you hit the water, after your ears hit the water, and then continually all the way down.
If you never hear a pop and you never feel any discomfort on the way down, you're doing it right.

Chewing gum before dive is suppose to help too.





Techniques I've heard of:
Wiggling the jaw
Tilting the head
yawning (while breathing in and out continually)
stretching your tongue to clear your eustation tubes

^^^all the above is to be done while breathing constantly
You need to have a flow of air to be able to push air into your middle ears

 

[Elonna]

The pinching nose doesn't work for me, swallowing is what I need to do. g1138 is right though, there are many methods, she just needs to try a few different ones to see what works for her and having her see an ENT may not hurt either. Good luck.

 

[Scott]

Have her watch the video by Edmond Kay at Doc's Diving Medicine Home Page

Different equlaization techniques

 

[TSandM]

I'll add a couple more links: THIS excellent article by DAN, and THIS freediving site, talking about equalization techniques.

One question: Does your wife have problems with clearing her ears on airplanes, or when driving up and down mountains? If so, she probably has an anatomic problem, and really should see a good ENT doc. If she can cope with airplanes easily, then the likelihood is great that she can manage diving, as well, and just needs to adjust technique. One of the biggest mistakes divers make is to leave equalization too late, until it is difficult. Some folks find that they even have to pre-pressurize their ears, before they even begin to descend.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Depending on how I'm feeling I start equalizing on the way to the dive site. Not hard or on every breath but will do a gentle valsalva every 10 minutes or so. Then for the first 15-20 feet I may equalize on every breath. Gently and slowly descending. I don't do rocket drops any more. Not worth it. If I want more time on the bottom I just plan a shallower profile or for deco.

 

[Lee Taylor]

The cause of the problem is usually liquid in the eustachian tubes. If you can use medicine to dry this liquid up prior to the dive, it is likely you will be on the way to no-ear-pain diving.

I use to have significant problems with reverse block. I resolved the problems by taking Clariton and sniffing saline nasal spray

 

[joe27march]

Thanks for all the great advice. The first attempt at certification ended with her having sever ear pain and not finishing. About a year later she tried again in warmer water, there was still some pain, but the early often normally (not always) helped. She has no issues with driving up mountains or air travel. I will sit with her and checkout all the links and see if she will be comfortable enough to dive in the waters of Virgina or NC.

I will also get her into to see an ENT doc.

 

[Joolz-A-Bubbles]

I am a new teen diver, so I don't know if this will help really. But I have problems clearing my ears too. And I tried sudafed (if that is how you spell it), and it seemed to work pretty well. The only side effect is that I crashed when I got in the car to go home afterwards. But some people say that there is actafed, that won't make you tired, but I haven't found it yet. Another problem is that she might be trying to clear her ears to hard. That was a major problem for me. I hope that this helps a little bit.

-Julia (Joolz-A-Bubbles)

 

[TSandM]

Joolz, Actifed is a mixture of chlorpheniramine maleate and psuedoephedrine. The former is an antihistamine, of an older class and known for sedating effects in some patients. The latter is a vasoconstrictor decongestant (works by making blood vessels constrict) which can cause people to be jittery, sleepless, have a high blood pressure or heart rate, or increase anxiety. The two are mixed in the hope that the sedative effect of the antihistamine will counter some of the hyperactive effects of the decongestant, and also in the hopes that the antihistamine will have some effectiveness against whatever process is causing the congestion in the first place.

Actifed is an old drug, and not actually a very sensible combination.

I doubt that the Sudafed was the reason you were tired after diving. It is more likely that it was excitement, exertion, or decompression stress that made you tired. Switching to Actifed is unlikely to improve the situation.