Relieving sinus pressure and pain took about an hour on the ground however, I was landing in Colorado. Quite honestly, once I felt the descending airplane making its way out of the sky and back toward earth, I almost jumped up and did a happy dance. Kim Ah-See and Sangeeta Maini, it occurs when pressure in the middle ear increases and presses a facial nerve, leading to a temporary loss of sensation until pressure is normalized.įor me, it felt a lot like sinus pressure on steroids, which also wouldn’t have been surprising as I have terrible sinuses and allergies, and often have to deal with a sinus infection on airplanes. What I found was comforting - at least in the sense that it didn’t look like I was dying, even though it felt that way.Īpparently, I’m not the first one to experience this facial paralysis, which can last from anywhere from minutes to days.Īccording to researchers Drs. I was literally in so much pain I could barely concentrate on typing, the chatter of the fliers next to me hurting my ears and making me feel sicker. Luckily, the plane had Wi-Fi and I was able to consult Google about my current situation. Airplane Accessories For Sinus Sufferers.How do you work on relieving sinus pressure when flying?.When Medication Doesn’t Work (Updated!).Relieving Sinus Pressure & Pain In-Flight.Psst, don’t forget to pin this post for later! This is what I felt like was happening, anyway. What if they grounded the plane and I ruined everyone’s vacation?īut what if they didn’t ground the plane and my brain literally burst and poured out my ears? I knew it took 3-6 minutes of oxygen not reaching your brain for permanent damage to occur, but I still felt oddly awkward about letting anyone know what was going on. My first thought - after my weird dentist fantasy - was that I was 28 years old and having a stroke. It was as if my dentist was sitting next to me beating me with a hammer and then injecting me with his scary Novocain syringe all over the right side of my face. I poked my right lip and it felt like leather, slapped my right cheek and felt nothing. It started with my lips, moving back to my teeth then up to my cheek bones, before reaching my eye and skull for a blinding pain…but only on the right side. We’d just reached 10,000 feet, and I was reading a book, when suddenly the entire right side of my face went numb. It is noted that although symptoms were predominantly frontal, x-ray changes were most often present in the maxillary sinuses.It’s not that I’m afraid of flying, but that my stomach, sinuses, and head seem to freak out when I change altitudes, and I need to work on relieving sinus pressure when flying quickly or else wriggle around in discomfort.ĭo you know how awkward it is to throw up your entire stomach contents in your airplane seat?ĭespite being prone to nausea and migraines in-flight, what happened to me on my most recent plane ride left me seriously terrified. The pathology was more commonly that of mucosal thickening, but in 12% of cases there was a fluid level. Of these the maxillary sinus was affected in most cases, the frontal in approximately one quarter and the ethmoidal in less than a fifth. The radiological signs of abnormality were present in over three quarters of the cases examined. Clinical examination supports the evidence of upper respiratory tract pathology in many cases. A history of recent or past sinus barotrauma or upper respiratory tract pathology is very common. Epistaxis is the second commonest symptom, and may be the sole symptom in some ascent cases. The majority complain of a frontal distribution of pain, with ethmoidal and maxillary being much less significant. Pain chronologically associated with the change of pressure is the most dominant symptom and is seen in 92% of the cases presented for treatment. Sinus barotrauma is a common occupational disease of divers, with the incidence of descent barotrauma approximately double that of ascent.

Maxillary sinus barotrauma