After further study and thinking, I’m correcting myself. Middle-ear barotrauma is not defined by the flexing of the eardrum. It is actually the damage done to the middle ear by negative pressure. Blood and mucus is sucked from surrounding tissues and begins to fill the middle ear. It just happens that in most cases it happens with painful flexing and sometimes tearing of the eardrum.
Therefore, an air cavity on the outside of eardrum in freediving, might help equalize the pressures (it would be negative on the outside drum and the middle ear), but damage to the middle ear would still occur at some point in depth and time. The only way to safely freedive at any significant depth is to have ambient pressure on the outside and fill the middle ear to the same pressure.
Agustín, Here is an idea. Fill the outer ear with warm water and then let the neoprene hold it in. Water is non-compressible so the water pressure on the outside should transmit through the neoprene and into the ear. The neoprene and body temperature should keep it warm. Just an idea.
Don
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