The old adage, "Never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear" is true. If you try to remove earwax or cerumen from your ears using cotton swabs, bobbie pins or paper clips you may cause serious injury or, at the least, make matters worse. Even though we believe that cotton swabs help clean our ears, quite often they push back as much, if not more wax than they remove. Sticking things into your ears can scratch the ear canal wall. The scratch can become infected because it is dark and moist in the ear canal where germs can multiply. An ear infection can be very painful and may require you to see a physician and use special antibiotics. You may even puncture your eardrum. This really hurts and may take a long time to heal. Sometimes perforations never heal and surgery is necessary.

So, how do you clean your ears? The ear is usually self-cleaning. Left alone, the ear naturally removes wax by itself. The skin grows outward from the eardrum to the outer ear pushing the wax outward. Fine hairs within the ear gently and constantly remove dry particles of wax and skin from the ear.

If you have a lot of wax and feel the need to have it removed, please see your physician or hearing health professional for advice. Your hearing healthcare provider can look into your ear and advise you if it is necessary. Special training is required to safely remove earwax. Hearing instrument specialists do not usually have the training to remove earwax and are not permitted to do so by law. Some audiologists are trained and may include cerumen removal as part of their professional services. Over the counter products are appropriate to keep earwax from building up. An initial examination of your ear should be made by your physician to insure there is no perforation or other contraindication for the use of such remedies. You can check with your pharmacist for which product would do the best job.

 

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