Piroska

This is not really a hearing problem though remotely related... I just don't know where else I would post this question...sorry.

So, I have to fly at least 2 intercontinental round trips per year, each time with 3 interim stops before the final destination. If you've flown before you might know this feeling of pressure building up in your ears after take-offs and landings. In my case this becomes so painful (like someone slowly cutting the inside of my ears up with a knife) that I can *barely* take it. Sometimes I get tears in my eyes and without those funny earplane earplug thingies I sometimes get that feeling as if I were about to faint from the pain. Now I use the earplugs every time, chew gum like crazy and use a doble dose of some really heavy nose spray... but it still doesn't help very well. I can take the pain, but it still brings tears to my eyes and I have ear aches for the next 2 days... and what makes it even worse is that my hearing suffers for up to a week. I can still hear but everything is dull and I have a funny loud swooch in my ears all the time that makes all outside noises harder to distinguish. It's especially hard then when I stop somewhere on an airport where I don't speak the local accent (Dutch English can be quite different and even more so NY taxi slang ) and it just freaks me out each time.

Now I heard this is not a healthy condition and I'm wondering if there's yet anything left I could try to relieve it a little. The pain is excrutiating and beyond normal. I doubt childbirth is much worse than what I'm going through when I fly

(Next flight coming up next week / back end of the month, then in July / Sept. and then Christmas...). ack...