Flying With Barotrauma Portable (2024)

I unbuckled my seatbelt, gathered my bag, and walked off the plane into the terminal’s dry, forgiving air. My ear throbbed with a dull, grateful ache—a souvenir of the silent war between a sealed cabin and a stubborn head. I had flown, but I had not traveled. I had simply waited for the sky to let go of my skull.

I felt it first as a dull recognition, a fullness like cotton soaked in seawater. Then, as the Boeing’s landing gear retracted with a thud, the fullness crystallized into a needle. Not a sharp prick, but a slow, rotating drill bit pushing from my eardrum inward toward my jaw. My own head had become a pressure chamber, and the only valve was jammed. flying with barotrauma

The pain vanished. Sound rushed back in a waterfall: the whine of the APU, the chatter of passengers, the squeak of overhead bins. I could hear my own exhale, and it was the most beautiful sound in the world. I unbuckled my seatbelt, gathered my bag, and