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Ear training

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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BryanW,

Here's another idea that should go along with Dons advice. You can hold your tubes open more or less continiously (at least on land). Listen to the sound of breathing through your nose, sounds pretty quiet and outside your head. Then equalize, open mouth seems to help, breath through your nose and listen for a loud roaring sound inside your head. When you hear that sound, your tubes are open. Practice keeping them open, should help the process.

Good luck

Connor
 
BryanW,

Here's another idea that should go along with Dons advice. You can hold your tubes open more or less continiously (at least on land). Listen to the sound of breathing through your nose, sounds pretty quiet and outside your head. Then equalize, open mouth seems to help, breath through your nose and listen for a loud roaring sound inside your head. When you hear that sound, your tubes are open. Practice keeping them open, should help the process.

Good luck

Connor
 
BryanW,

Here's another idea that should go along with Dons advice. You can hold your tubes open more or less continiously (at least on land). Listen to the sound of breathing through your nose, sounds pretty quiet and outside your head. Then equalize, open mouth seems to help, breath through your nose and listen for a loud roaring sound inside your head. When you hear that sound, your tubes are open. Practice keeping them open, should help the process.

Good luck

Connor
 
BryanW,

Here's another idea that should go along with Dons advice. You can hold your tubes open more or less continiously (at least on land). Listen to the sound of breathing through your nose, sounds pretty quiet and outside your head. Then equalize, open mouth seems to help, breath through your nose and listen for a loud roaring sound inside your head. When you hear that sound, your tubes are open. Practice keeping them open, should help the process.

Good luck

Connor
 
Just a quick question!

I'm currently doing my O/W PADI course, and i'm just a bit worried about my equalising.

I'm fine on the way down - my equalising is getting better now that i've taken the advice about practicing above-ground, its my ascents thats the problem.

Well... I'm not sure if it is actually a problem, it's just that i never hear anyone talk about the ascents, and i've never been deeper than 4m before.

Whenever I ascend i ALWAYS feel the same as going down, only the opposite (hope that makes sense!), and I have to swallow every half a meter on the ascent. If any of you have tried it - its extrmely difficualt to swallow when your not eating - especially after about 15 times in a row! Is this normal? Am I going to get stuck down the bottom becuase I can't swallow quickly enough to get up again?

And is it normal to have to equalise every 50cm on the way down?

Thank you so much if you reply - and im sorry if these are dumb questions!
 
Welcome to DB. No, its not normal.

What happens if you keep coming up slowly? What should happen is every few meters ( less as you approach the surface) your e-tubes should open automaticly and equalize. This should occur before there is any pain or significant discomfort. You can usually feel and hear it. Is it possible that you are swallowing before your ears open automaticly?

Connor
 
Is it possible that you are congested or plugging the nose or equalizing on the way up?
 
Like Connor said the Eustachian tubes should really open automatically on the ascent. This is because they are basically a one-valve for closing against air pressure in the thorax. Which is why a person usually only has problem when descending. In ascending the increase in air pressure in the middle ear (the other end of the tubes) should open the tubes and bleed off the excess air pressure.

But it is possible from things like congestion, etc. for the E-tubes to get stuck and not open on ascent. Some people refer to this a reverse blockage. For most all you need to do is a reverse equalization. That is hold your nose and suck air from your sinuses instead of force air into them. You can do this on land and should feel your eardrums become bent in.

If you are quick and observant, you can sense the problem and do the reverse squeeze in the first ascent you feel it and usually that is all you will need for the rest of the day. It’s just like any valve with some crude in it, if you can help it become unstuck it will usually flush out and work.
don
 
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Since I'm totally new to this whole freediving stuff, I'm not sure If I even understand the basic technique of equalizing. I can't dive in open water now, since the snow is yet melting here and the pool I do my dynamic training isn't deep enough, so equalization isn't needed (it's only about 6 feet).
When I try to pinch my nose and blow gently through it - it seems like I'm only equalizing one of my ears (can't do nothing about it, I feel this 'pressure' or strange feeling in only one of the ears). But when I try to blow hard and fast, my both ears equalize in a second.

BTW: If I swallow, the 'feeling' goes away. Is this normal? Does it mean your ears aren't equalized anymore?
 
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It's normal to have one ear easier to equalize than the other.

I haven't done any open water diving, but I try to equalize in the pool. At first it was very difficult, but now I can equalize both ears most of the time.

Lucia
 
if you are blowing into your ears on land, then they arent really equalizing, they are building pressure, so when you swallow you are releasing that pressure. The blowing into them is more like assending and the swallowing is doing the equalizing.
 
TNdiver said:
if you are blowing into your ears on land, then they arent really equalizing, they are building pressure, so when you swallow you are releasing that pressure. The blowing into them is more like assending and the swallowing is doing the equalizing.
Click to expand...

Yeah. You can't really practice equalizing without greater pressure outside the ear. You have to dive or increase the outside air pressure to do this. At ground level, you can only practice opening the eustachian tubes. It makes a loud, at least to the person doing it, click as it opens. Very obvious.
 
What I do to equalize on land is first to hold my nose and swallow. This creates negative pressure in my ears. I can now equalize using whatever method I am trying to learn.
 
that trick does work, i just tried it. I found it helpful to pinch my nose off and create a vaccume in it and then close it off. then when you swallow that pressure helps pull the pressure in on your ears
 
Hi, me again.

I gave up freediving about 3 years ago because I couldn't resolve the problems described at the start of this thread. But a recent trip where I was able to do some snorkel-diving (can't really call it freediving as the water was never more than 10m deep) reminded me how much I love it. So I was wondering if anyone who's joined these boards in the last three years has any new advice. I'm still not entirely sure what's going on in terms of physiology - blood swelling the tube walls? Fluid getting in there? Neither sudafed nor ibuprofen (which I tried in case it was an inflammation) seemed to work. I use a ProEar mask now which does seem to make equalising easier, and possibly delays the onset of the tubes closing up, but doesn't prevent it.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, Bryan
 
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