Hi,
Lately I've been reading again about equalization and BTV and people who are "born with the gift" of opening their eustachian tubes. I'm one of those who have given it a shot with the persistence to practice for an hour a few times, then call it quits because it just wouldn't happen.
Now I'm again feeling motivated as ever trying again. I can usually do a comfortable frenzel against my mask without hands, but it depends on the day, sometimes I just spill out a few bubbles trying, then quickly grab my nose and equalize (and usually have to stop descending for a second). It's ok as I'm not competing, but I hate the unconsistency and the effect of having to resort to plan b, usually ruining whatever I'm doing.
To the topic. I can contract some muscles inside my head, resulting in a deep loud humming in my ears. Have been able to since as long as I can remember. The squeeze itself feels weird, like squeezing the muscles in your pelvic diaphragm (had to look it up, hope it makes sense, close to "holding your pee in"), it's hard to keep the contraction going on for very long. When I do it repeatedly in short "snaps", or manage to do it for a longer period, I usually end up feeling my tubes having negative pressure, like reverse equalizing. Only a couple of times, with some jaw-wiggle and a tongue press has it resulted in a slight popping sound. If someone knows what I'm doing, I would love to hear an explanation and perhaps any idea if it could lead to mastering btv.
My guess is that I'm actually contracting muscles around the eustachian tubes somewhere, but instead of being able to open them voluntarily, I manage to lessen the volume in the tubes momentarily and in fact sometimes push some air out, resulting in negative pressure when I stop. That's how it feels, but I haven't found a way to really tell. In a swimming pool I've tried to descend to about 1-2m without equalizing, just when my ears start to hurt, then doing the hum trick and the pain goes away for the duration of doing it. Without getting more air into the tubes the pressure will only rise by making the volume smaller. (Or then the pain recedes because of something else.) That in itself would otherwise be cool to find a few more meters when going deeper, but the problem is that I have to "let go" at some point and the pain comes back.
The humming sounds like what you hear if you put your ear tight against your bicep and flex the bicep, only a lot louder. (Ok, not that easy to realize necessarily). To the surface nothing can be seen happening except for mey eyes seem to want to close a bit, and it can't be heard either.
Any ideas, please share. :wave
Lately I've been reading again about equalization and BTV and people who are "born with the gift" of opening their eustachian tubes. I'm one of those who have given it a shot with the persistence to practice for an hour a few times, then call it quits because it just wouldn't happen.
Now I'm again feeling motivated as ever trying again. I can usually do a comfortable frenzel against my mask without hands, but it depends on the day, sometimes I just spill out a few bubbles trying, then quickly grab my nose and equalize (and usually have to stop descending for a second). It's ok as I'm not competing, but I hate the unconsistency and the effect of having to resort to plan b, usually ruining whatever I'm doing.To the topic. I can contract some muscles inside my head, resulting in a deep loud humming in my ears. Have been able to since as long as I can remember. The squeeze itself feels weird, like squeezing the muscles in your pelvic diaphragm (had to look it up, hope it makes sense, close to "holding your pee in"
), it's hard to keep the contraction going on for very long. When I do it repeatedly in short "snaps", or manage to do it for a longer period, I usually end up feeling my tubes having negative pressure, like reverse equalizing. Only a couple of times, with some jaw-wiggle and a tongue press has it resulted in a slight popping sound. If someone knows what I'm doing, I would love to hear an explanation and perhaps any idea if it could lead to mastering btv. My guess is that I'm actually contracting muscles around the eustachian tubes somewhere, but instead of being able to open them voluntarily, I manage to lessen the volume in the tubes momentarily and in fact sometimes push some air out, resulting in negative pressure when I stop. That's how it feels, but I haven't found a way to really tell. In a swimming pool I've tried to descend to about 1-2m without equalizing, just when my ears start to hurt, then doing the hum trick and the pain goes away for the duration of doing it. Without getting more air into the tubes the pressure will only rise by making the volume smaller. (Or then the pain recedes because of something else.) That in itself would otherwise be cool to find a few more meters when going deeper, but the problem is that I have to "let go" at some point and the pain comes back.
The humming sounds like what you hear if you put your ear tight against your bicep and flex the bicep, only a lot louder. (Ok, not that easy to realize necessarily). To the surface nothing can be seen happening except for mey eyes seem to want to close a bit, and it can't be heard either.
Any ideas, please share. :wave
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