Preliminary Review of Earplanes

No, the title of this post does not have a spelling error . The product I’m writing about in this post is actually called “EarPlanes”. While I was ordering some other stuff for my backpacking trip to Vietnam, I saw these and found the idea very interesting and wanted to try them out, even though I don’t have problems with regulating the pressure in my ears during flights.

So what are these “EarPlanes” and how do they work?

EarPlanes

EarPlanes are basically pressure-regulating earplugs that are inserted into the ear to help reduce discomfort often associated with air travel. They were developed by Cirrus Healthcare Products LLC in conjunction with the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles, and have been tested by US Navy aviators at the Miramar Naval Air Station (remember TOP GUN? ) in San Diego.¹

In simple terms EarPlanes equalize the pressure on either side of the eardrum while flying.

There are some people that recommend keeping the EarPlanes in your ears during the entire flight. Others however, claim that you should insert them into your ear before boarding the plane, waiting half an hour until cruising altitude is reached to take them out and putting them back in half an hour before landing and not removing them until the cabin door has been opened. I will definitely try the second recommendation, as I don’t believe these plugs are very comfortable to wear on an 9.5 + 5 hour flight.

I also find the company philosophy of Cirrus Healthcare Products LLC quite appealing too:

“The mission of the company is to offer products, natural ones whenever possible [emphasis added by me], that relieve health problems in an easy to use affordable and convenient format.”

Company Mission of the Cirrus Healthcare Products LLC

Why use medication or any other hard drugs in order to cope with illments, if natural solutions work just as well or even better? This has always been common sense to me. But in the age of big pharmaceutical companies that make billions of dollars profit, there’s hardly any place for such solutions anymore.

I’ll be sure to update this post as soon as I’ve tried and reviewed them in the field . So far, EarPlanes have received very good customer reviews on Amazon. If you want to purchase them, the are available through Amazon.com here (available as a 1 or 3 pair pack) or Amazon.de here and there are also sizes for children as well. Currently Amazon.de only has a 12-pack size Amazon.com on the other hand has 1 or 3-set packs.

Have you already tried EarPlanes? If so, what are your experiences with them? Did they help? Let’s hear about it in the comments below. And don’t forget to bookmark this article if you enjoyed the read!