I have had that awful searing behind the eye pain while flying. It is sinus related. I have had sinus surgery and now am not as afflicted as I used to be. My only recommendation is saline spray and afrin. That opens you up and moisturizes.
It is worth having an ENT check it out. I had a retention cyst on one occasion. This was pretty easily drained in the doctor's office. Once they got that out, the problem went away for some time. It started to come back ( with lots of other sinus issues) so I had surgery about 6 years ago. Now, the problems are few and far between.

I have had "the pain": The sharp pain struck above my right eye, inside underneath my eyebrow. The pain was so intense, it felt like someone was taking a knife and stabbing me there.


AFter reading the prior posts it seems that sudafed is the answer. Anyone else care to comment.

I have had this a few times, but not recently. I always fly with Sudafed. If I'm feeling even remotely congested, I take the Sudafed about an hour before beginning descent. When I'm congested, I also avoid alcohol on the flight.

1. Stay hydrated - drink lots of water during your flight (no soda, tea, or coffee).

2. Sudafed and nasal spray (like Afrin or Four-way) 20 minutes prior to takeoff and again before landing. If you have severe congestion, use the Afrin one time, wait 20 minutes and use it again.

3. Saline spray in flight to keep sinuses hydrated.

I too have had this unbearable pain happen to me a few years back. The pain was mainly in my eardrums, I wanted to rip my head off the pain was so dang intense. I had no cold nor sinus problems, so this was most likely due to the pressure felt during the descent which may have been steeper than usual, but I don't recall.

I told the flight attendant as I really didn't know what was happening to me and I was really spooked. She did as another poster in this thread mentioned, brought back 2 styrofoam coffee cups filled with a boiling hot towel in each and told me to put them over my ears.

The pain went away as quickly as it came! I was amazed! I thanked her profoundly upon exiting the plane and asked her to name the treatment she had given me as I feared it would happen to me again, and wanted to know what to ask the FA if this occured in the future. She said just ask for dry heat.

Well, on another flight about 1 year later, the dang thing occured again, so I buzzed for the FA, and asked her for the dry heat.. She didn't know what I was talking about, so I explained to her exactly the proceedure, she did it, but the towels were not hot enough so I was in severe pain for the entire landing.

So I guess the trick here is it needs to be scalding hot in order for it to dialate your ear drums thus creating humidity.

You know, I never thought about just how silly I looked with styrofoam cups covering my ears, I did get a few strange looks from the nearby passengers, but I really didn't care at that point I just wanted relief!

So folks, I can second that this trick really works miracles!

Once when i was really stuffed up and knew I had to get on a plane the next day I talked to an M.D. buddy who suggested the same thing - Afrin 20 minutes before take off & 20 minutes before descent. Worked like a charm.... ^

Now I always travel with the Afrin in my shaving kit.

voyageuse: I was told that the code for this condition and
treatment was "airplane ears."