So, I had a bit of cold while I was out in the country of snow. It wasn't too bad, so after a day at home feeling rotten I decided I was we'll enough to go back up the mountain and ski again. This was possibly a mistake. On the gondola up the mountain, my ears didn't pop. Try as I might, with lots of very dainty and elegant *ahem* nose blowing, swallowing, yawning, sucking sweets and massaging the blocked ear passages, nothing worked.
Oh well, what's the worst that could happen? As it turned out, the worst turned out to be being unable to balance while standing still. Oddly enough I was fine while skiing, but as soon as I was stood still the world decided to move around a lot more than it normally does, which was very unhelpful of it.
Eventually it got to the point where I realised that not being able to stand still was not helpful or normal, so I went down the mountain, which made things even worse! My ears didn't pop again on the way down, which built up the pressure so much that I was constantly dizzy and unbalanced. Doing the sensible thing, I went to the pharmacy, explained my predicament, and got some anti-dizziness tablets, which did absolutely nothing!
I waited until the next morning before deciding that I really ought to go to the doctors, as I was due to get on a plane back to The UK later that morning, and the ear thing might get worse with even more altitude.
Well, it turned out I had very low blood pressure, (which Azariah said he should have picked up on, as I was acting rather stupidly and quite like I was tipsy) and my ear canals were blocked due to the pressure change, which affected my balance and gave me vertigo. obviously more altitude would make it worse, so flying that day was now out of the question. The doctor gave me some magical pills, and I went home again. Half an hour after the first tablet, the world was back to normal - it was amazing!
I still had to stay for a couple more days abroad rather than flying back that day, and even now I'm back in the UK there's still a slight ringing in my ears when I yawn or open my mouth wide. Oh well, hopefully that'll go away and sort itself out soon.
