I got off the plane 3 days ago and my ears still havent popped

and i have tried the old tricks. holding my nose while breathing, taking decongestants, elder flower tea.

I gather some people are more susceptible to this sort of post-flight condition than others. It happens to me, too - especially when the flight has been high and long - where I feel like I've been swimming, my ears are blocked, and everything sounds muffled. When it happens, it can be disconcerting, 'cos the balance is affected; and the sense of introspection one suddenly feels is onerous, leading to mounting anxiety in social situations. I suggest that you visit the doctor if it persists longer than a couple of weeks, but I have always found the pressure in my ears eases within the space of a single week. The first time I had it, I finger-probed around in my ears, held my nose and shut my mouth while blowing etc. BUT THIS MADE NO DIFFERENCE, and could make things very much worse, I reckon. So, basically, my advise is to chill.

My ex-wife had real problems with this, including major earache. She was advised to suck on something. Airplanes are fairly public, so she went for sweets. She also soaked tissues with menthol stuff and sniffed them a lot. It seemed to help some. Whether this would be any use three days on I've no idea.

Losingsenses - Hold your nose, close your mouth tightly and breath out - hard. The breath will be forced down yr eustacian toobs and out yr lugs. It will definitely work.

This happened to my boyfriend when we went to Italy--he was deaf for the whole ten-day trip and he was the one that knew Italian! Now I know that they sell little things you can put in your ears to help equalize the pressure on flights. Maybe these would work after-the-fact. Maybe eating lots of spicy food would make your ears sweat and expand. It's always a good idea to eat spicy food.

No, you just have to do what I said.

When I came back from Canada as a youth, I was deaf for about a week due to ear-plane (haha do you see) mentalism, but it eventually recovered itself - we did check it out with a doctor but they said they couldn't really do much about it. I recommend following the Word of Dr C (grebt cd-r BTW)!

I think it took a couple of weeks for my hearing to get back to normal after I got back from Thailand, a combination of diving and lots of plane travel (not to mention a slight ear infection)really messed them up and I kept getting fuzzy hearing in my right ear for ages.

Dr C is right on the popping thing though, swallowing while holding nose is also good, it also helps to tilt your head back to get your tubes as inline as possible. You learn these things when you're diving and have to equalise yr ears every metre you go below the surface, after a while you can do it just by swallowing and kind of tensing your ears.

My ears haven't recovered after seeing Motorhead in 1983

thanks everybody. i ended up going to the doctor after a week of discomfort. turns out it i have an ear infection.
Dr C. if you were trying to be funny, you are a TOTAL DUD.