Travelling Whilst Ill
 

Well because of my supreme bad luck, I have fallen sick with the flu for the past week. The problem is that I am meant to be flying to New Zealand tomorrow, but I know my eustachian tubes are blocked up (confirmed by doctor).
I am on antibiotics and nasal sprays etc but they don't seem to be working.
Last time I went flying I was perfectly healthy and it was excruciatingly painful.
Has anyone flown with this condition? If so, how did you cope and stop your eardrums bursting?

Thanks in advance

Don't do it...my coworker blew out his eardrum 1.5 years ago and is still hard of hearing in that ear.

Eek...ok thanks :) Hopefully my travel insurance will cover this.

Any other experiences anyone?

I wouldn't fly to/from Asia with a fever - suppose you find yourself in a SARS quarantine?

New Zealand isn't in Asia; it's just across the Tasman Sea to the East of the Australian East Coast. BTW I thought the SARS thing was over?

Don't bring your Kangaroo virus over here ;)

In what way was it painful when you were healthy? Geez, I dunno why I ask - I don't know anything about it.

In all seriousness though, thanks to heightened attempts to slow increasing P (meth) production here, flu medicine with ephedrine in it is getting harder to come by (photo ID and symptoms help). More importantly, don't bring 20 packets with you or customs may subject you to all sorts of horrible procedures out of spite ;)

The economics are interesting - the local newspaper tells me a NZ$12 pack of flu medicine sells to a P cook for about NZ$100...

Last time I flew it was to Melbourne, so it was like "ok here we go, here comes the pain" for takeoff, then we were cruising for about 40 minutes, then had to go through the whole thing all over again for landing. Guess I had blocked tubes even when I was healthy.

Oh believe me I have a lot of medication that would probably be considered to be to illegal to bring into your country if I didn't have a cover letter from the doctor. Probably safer to carry the medication on person with the letter, eh? Does sound as though I could make a nice living out of it over there though ;)

BTW I'm staying in Wellington to start with so no kangaroo virus for you Auckland dwellers.

They use basic flu medicine over there to make amphetamines? Over here it's mainly Sudafed that is sought after by the bikie gangs.

16 hours to departure :)

Chewing gum or screaming might help.

Well I made it... rather painful descending into Wellington when the air pressure changed; took 2 - 3 days for the ear to clear but it's fine now. Thanks for the help everyone.

Did you see any of the Lord of the Rings ROTK hoopla??

Haha funny you should ask that...I arrived on the Wednesday after that...heard quite enough about LOTR...one of my cousins was a production assistant for the three films.

Met up with Bill Douglas yesterday, tried to go Karting but both places we tried were too busy....so went for a nice drive in the 911. Eases some of the withdrawal symptoms :)

Crappy weather down here at the moment though...really dense fog where I have been staying for the past 2 days straight.