During airplane travel, our patients most frequently have complaints in the ear, nose and throat area. The reason for this is that air pressure decreases with increasing altitude after the plane takes off. It is explained by Boyle's Law, one of the most fundamental laws of physics. As you know, Boyle's Law is "The pressure and volume of gases at equal temperature are inversely proportional." In other words, as altitude increases, air pressure decreases and gases equal to sea level move towards the low-pressure area.
ENT and head and neck. There are air-filled areas distributed to different anatomical regions in the region. These are located in the sinuses within the bones of the middle ear. The reason why these air-filled cavities are like this is because they enable our head to be lighter in mass and to enable the organs in which they are located to perform their normal physiological functions. In simple terms, just as the inside of a football ball is filled with air and is light, the function of other air-filled spaces such as the sinuses in our head is the same. We can simply divide the organs, which are air-filled spaces in the head neck, into two. These are the ears and sinuses.
For bone-walled body cavities such as the middle ear and sinuses, the meaning here is that the air pressure in these cavities corresponds to the environmental pressure during flight. is necessary. In other words, as the pressure decreases as the plane gains altitude during the journey, the high pressure in these spaces can easily escape and become equal to the ambient pressure. For example, gases in a closed space at an altitude of 4000 meters expand approximately twice.
Today, in modern aircraft, cabin pressure is kept constant throughout the entire journey. However, this is adjusted according to the pressure at an altitude of approximately 2500 meters, not at the atmospheric pressure at sea level. While passengers travel 10 kilometers above during the journey, the pressure inside the aircraft is adjusted to the pressure 2500 kilometers above. While the plane is climbing, the air remaining in the ear goes out of the nasal area through the Eustachian tube, and the air in the sinuses goes out through the holes of the sinuses opening into the nose.
In this case, the holes that provide this air exchange both in our ears, inside our nose and in our nasal area. cause clogging We shouldn't have any disease at all. If we get on a plane while we are slightly ill or have an illness that blocks the upper respiratory tract, such as a cold or flu, we may experience complaints such as severe pain as the pressure in these air spaces cannot be easily equalized.
Therefore, we may have a disorder in the ENT area. If we are going to travel while there is time, we need to get advice, treatment and medication from a specialist.
Read: 0
