Have you or your child ever had tremendous ear pain when flying because of blocked sinuses, cold or ear infection? I have, and it is excruciatingly painful! I swear one of my eardrums hasn’t been the same since then.
I had a head cold with stopped-up ears. Silly me, I didn’t realize I shouldn’t have been flying, at least not without a decongestant, and the flight attendant could do nothing to help me.
So a few days ago when my family and I were flying to my niece’s wedding, my older son wasn’t able to pop his eardrums, and it was getting increasingly painful for him as we began our descent into the Nashville airport.
He hadn’t been coughing or sneezing beforehand, so I hadn’t known this might be a problem for him.
I tried to get him to yawn really wide, but that wasn’t working, and the panic he was sinking into was making it worse for him.
I remembered what a friend who used to work overseas told me about his then-infant daughter, who had a cold when she was flying and began shrieking in pain: a flight attendant placed a warm, wet washcloth in each of two cups, then the mother held the cups to the baby’s ears.
Luckily, I remembered in time to ask our flight attendant if she could do the same for us. She did, and voila, it worked! Whew!
