Air Travel and Ear Pain

With the summer holiday season fast approaching, more and more of us will be jetting off to far flung destinations around the world. Whilst traveling by plane many of us will experience issues with our ears due to pressure.  In rare cases these problems can lead to severe pain and hearing loss, so it is best to take precautions, before, during and after a flight. 

As an Audiologist, I thought it would be good to explain what happens to our ears when we fly…

It really comes down to air pressure. Normally the air pressure inside the inner ear and the air pressure outside are essentially the same, or at least not different enough to cause any trouble. Even if you were to hike to the top of a tall mountain, the slow speed of your ascent would allow time for the pressure to equalise along the way. A problem only occurs when the change in altitude is so rapid that the pressure inside the inner ear and the air pressure outside don’t have time to equalise, as occurs in air travel. 

When your flight takes off, and begins its ascent, the air pressure inside the inner ear quickly surpasses that of the pressure outside. The eardrum swells outward. Picture a loaf of bread baking, and you get the idea. Conversely if air pressure inside the inner ear rapidly becomes less than the air pressure outside, the tympanic membrane (the eardrum) will be sucked inward, almost like a vacuum effect. What has happened is that the Eustachian tube (which links our ears with our throat) has flattened and needs a bit of extra help from you in order to continue to do its job of bringing air into the inner ear. Whether ascending or descending, that stretching not only causes the eardrum not to vibrate (thus the muffled sounds) but also causes the pain you feel. 

Everyone who has flown in a plane has felt the effects of a change in altitude on ears; a feeling of fullness and popping is commonplace. You need to equalise the pressure by introducing as much air as possible via the Eustachian tube and there are a number of ways to do that. 

The easiest way to equalise the pressure is to swallow. When you swallow, that clicking or popping sound you may hear is actually a tiny bubble of air that has moved from the back of the nose into the middle ear, via the Eustachian tube. The Eustachian tube ensures that the air in the middle ear is constantly being re-supplied. That air is then absorbed into the membranes of the inner ear, and the cycle starts over again. This constant cycle of air ensures that the air pressure on both sides stays equal. When you fly, the trick is to ensure that the Eustachian tubes work overtime and open more frequently to accommodate the change in air pressure. 

Chewing gum or sucking on a hard boiled sweet will help; for infants, whose Eustachian tubes are much narrower than an adult’s, the change in air pressure can be even more excruciating, so a bottle or dummy is recommended to increase swallowing. 

Other ways of equalising the pressure include:

• Avoid sleeping during ascent or descent
• Drink lots of fluids in-flight to stay hydrated
• Yawn
• EarPlanes: Specially designed ear plugs that have a filter to equalise pressure
• Nasal spray: Take only when needed as overuse of nasal sprays can end up causing more congestion

Karen Finch is the Managing Director and lead audiologist at The Hearing Care Centre.
The multi-award winning, family-run company has 20 centres across Suffolk and Norfolk.
For more information visit www.hearingcarecentre.co.uk or call 01473 230330.

Sound advice: turn down your music!

Last week saw the return of International Ear Care Day organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to raise awareness of hearing loss and to promote prevention of hearing loss.

A very big concern of mine is that more than one billion teenagers and young people around the world are at serious risk of developing hearing loss due to unsafe listening behaviours. According to data release by WHO, nearly half of 12-35 year olds in middle-income and high-income countries listen to dangerous levels of sound on devices like smartphones and MP3 players. Additionally, almost 40% of these young people are exposed to hazardous noise levels at entertainment venues like nightclubs, concerts and sporting stadiums.

As they go about their daily lives doing what they enjoy, more and more people (not only youngsters) are placing themselves at risk of hearing loss. My advice to everyone is to look after your hearing because once you lose it, it won’t come back. Hearing loss can have a devastating effect on your life. It can damage your physical and mental health, and have an adverse effect on relationships, education and employment.

The WHO defines an acceptable level of noise for prolonged exposure as 85 decibels – roughly the volume of heavy city traffic. As volume increases, safe exposure duration falls steeply. For example, it is not safe to spend more than 15 minutes around noise levels of 100 decibels, which is typical for sporting events, clubs and bars.

Everyone should protect their ears against hearing loss by wearing earplugs at noisy events. They should also keep the volume down on their personal audio devices, and try to limit use of these devices to fewer than 60 minutes per day.

If you feel your hearing is already being affected, I would highly recommend that you book a hearing test with a qualified audiologist.  How much time do your children spend listening to music, headphones seemingly permanently clamped to their heads?

Hear better than ever with Siemens binax hearing aids

Siemens is lifting binaural hearing systems to a new level. For the first time, hearing-impaired individuals can now hear better than those with normal hearing in particularly demanding listening situations*.

Despite their enormous computing power, the new Binax instruments are the most energy-efficient in their class.

Binax exchanges audio signals. Each binaural hearing aid can assess the acoustic environment not only on its own side, but also on the other. In the process, four microphones – two in each device – form a virtual eight-microphone network. New calculation methods work much like the human brain in leveraging the fact that voice signals don't reach both ears at the same speed or volume. Based on such differences, wearers can more accurately identify and focus on the sources of sound.

Binaural hearing aids also use this new technology in windy locations ideal for those golfers and outdoor patients. They automatically determine which side is receiving better signals and replicate them for the other device. These latest Siemens binaural hearing aids are capable of transmitting around a thousand times as much data per second as preceding models.

The new peak performance does not come at the expense of battery life and they can run on conventional hearing instrument batteries or, depending on the model, on rechargeable batteries.

Karen's comments: “We have had amazing success with the last Siemens technology platform called Micon and this new level is so exciting. My team and I can't wait to get started and see how this technology performs and improves peoples lives.”

If you would like to be amongst the first trialling these new instruments, please give our customer care team a call and book your appointment - Freephone 0800 096 2637.

FACT: These latest Siemens binaural hearing aids are capable of transmitting around a thousand times as much data per second as preceding models.

*Two clinical studies have shown that binax provides better than normal hearing in certain demanding environments (Northern Colorado University, 2014; Oldenburg Hörzentrum, 2013): Speech Reception Thresholds in cocktail-party situations improved up to 2.9dB for wearers with mild to moderate hearing loss using Carat binax or Pure binax hearing instruments with narrow directionality, compared to people with normal hearing.

Ear Safety This Guy Fawkes Night

The days and nights around Fireworks Night are extremely hazardous to your ears. Fireworks can cost you your hearing.

For the lucky ones, their hearing returns, but many must live with their hearing loss or tinnitus for the rest of their lives. There is no cure for noise induced hearing damage. But you can easily prevent it.

Two thousandth of a second is all it takes for an exploding firecracker to put out the noise intensity to put your hearing at risk for life. The burst of noise is so short that you may not sense its true intensity.

Perhaps you love the thrill of fireworks, but you better watch out and be aware that*:

• 1 in 10,000 people suffer permanent hearing damage because of fireworks
• Young adults under the age of 25 are three times more likely than other groups to suffer fireworks related hearing damage
• The loud sounds from fireworks can cause hearing loss if protection is not used. The noise levels produced by fireworks can reach 150-175dB. The recommendation from World Health Organisation is not to be exposed to more than 140dB of peak sound pressure for adults and 120dB for children.
• Infants generally experience the greatest sound pressure and should not be exposed to fireworks.

Take Precautions

Guy Fawkes Night will be celebrated but take care of yourself and each other. Use earplugs to protect your hearing. Simple off the shelf ear plugs would do the trick and for the little ones there are fantastic, inexpensive noise breaker ear defenders - which look pretty cool also.

Make sure that no one else is standing too close when you light the fuse of your fireworks. Most of those suffering hearing damage did not cause it themselves. They suffered the bad luck of being too close to the fireworks of others.

If dealing with fireworks of 170 dB, adults needs to be 15 to 20 meters away from the fireworks before they are at a safe distance, while children have to be 50 to 60 meters away from the same fireworks.

*These conclusions were based on a study of hearing injuries related to fireworks celebrations in Germany, 2000.