People Share Their Worst Airplane Stories, and It’s a Doozy

While this is a particularly nasty instance, the pressure change in planes ascending to the air can affect you in all sorts of ways and is somewhat common. Most known is your ears popping, which a lot of people try to cope with by bringing chewing gum. It’s safer than trying to blow your ears, as that can blow your eardrums if you are not careful.

In the case of this passenger, however, they were having a more extreme reaction to the shift. Airplane headaches are not too uncommon and usually come from the blood vessels in your face beginning to dilate. I can only guess this was an extreme version of that, with the pain coming from the individual blood vessels.