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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2381 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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My wireless in-ears got clogged with wax, disturbing the stereo balance, and after trying to clean it out with a q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol, I decided it was a shame to let it go to waste and then cleaned my ear canals out with it.

In hindsight, this was a pretty bad decision, my ears ache, and I think I might have caused local irritation or even a mild infection. I didn't expect that to happen, I've done it before with no real issue, but..

Fuck me, if putting q-tips in there is bad for me, why does it feel so right? At least without the alcohol..

One thing I noticed about a decade or two ago is that Q-tips and similar products always have instructions that explicitly tell you not to put it into your ear, only swab around the entrance. Presumably it's to avoid legal liability or something, but I don't think I've ever encountered anyone, including myself, who heeds this instruction, to the extent that it's actually unusual for someone to use Q-tips for something other than poking into their ears. It does feel, so, so right, though I admit I always have a bit of a dissatisfied ticklish feeling afterward.

I've never put a Q-tip in my ear. Not once. Naive me, until I read online, I thought basically all right-thinking people heeded this advice. Perforated ear drums seem like too big a deal to risk.

I've been cleaning inside of my ears with broken off wooden skewers and wads of cotton wool since.. well moving away from home where it was q-tips.

Trust me, even gently poking at the eardrum with something soft is excruciating, I can't imagine perforating it.

I've had no real issues 99.9% of the times I've used them in the ear canal, barring this particular incident with the leftover alcohol, and one time my mom cheaped out and bought the cheapest Chinese variant on Amazon.

The latter dislodged in my ear, and after I didn't pay too much attention, developed into a bad case of otitis media that had the ENT doctor who examined me suspect it was a fungal infection until the syringing brought out a moldy lump of cotton that had been festering in there for 6 months. So do check if all of it came back out with the wax!

Once you syringe your ears, you never go back. Q tips don’t get out the deep level wax.

Why do I want to get out the deep level wax? If I need a syringe to remove something that healthy bodies develop normally, I tend to assume that I shouldn't remove it.

Short Version: YES CHAD

Long Version: Your body has a natural process for managing the wax, and it is present for a reason, the absence of it has risks and the removal process has risks (even with liquid irrigation), for this reason it isn't recommended to due it anymore than necessary.........but it is a popular request.

For a few reasons (run of the mill buildup, a foreign body, leftover debris from an infection, shitty anatomy like narrow canals ) you can get buildup that can feel uncomfortable, be painful, create pressure on other structures.....or most commonly cause reduction in ability to hear (very common in the elderly).

It also tends to just FEEL good in the way that a lot of self care does. Ultimately you aren't supposed to do it very often.

Protip: if you are worried about wax build up impacting your hearing an easy way to check is to rub your fingers together close to each ear. If the sound level is different something is likely going down (if it's the same it could still be wax build up but the issue is more commonly expressed heavier on one side than the other).

Also human if you read this come on bruh. Terrible idea.

I happened to read this about 2 months late, and right after a ?middle ear infection /painful wax buildup that happened after I refrained from using q-tips for a good while :(

(Mostly because I ran out at home, and couldn't be bothered to buy more)

As a point of mild contention, if you develop noticeable hearing loss from wax buildup, I would assume that's clear evidence that your body isn't doing what it's supposed to in regards to keeping the ear canal nice and open.

As for ear irrigation, what's really the worst that can happen? A vasovagal syncope, assuming you aren't using boiling water. I had to irrigate a horrendous amount of wax back in my intern days, to the point that if I collected it all after a dozen patients, I could reproduce that candle scene from Shrek 1 haha.

As for q-tips, yeah, probably not a good idea, but I lump it into the same category of guilty pleasures as my love for biryani and disregard for my cardiovascular health. The one time it really backfired on me was because I used cheapo no-name buds that detached inside my ear while I didn't notice. I will only cease extolling the virtues of that practise when the GMC get my ass 🙏

I'm hammered so please forgive some element of nonsense here but keep in mind that earwax has several natural purposes that can be further impaired by irrigation, for instance if you have clogging but not full blockage it can be partially functional at most of its given tasks but failing at whats most superficially noticeable (that is: hearing).

If you are irrigating you are more likely to end up with shit like infections and physical trauma, which the wax is supposed to be assisting with.

Risk/reward benefit is tricky here.

As a side note lots of people end up with otitis because of things like rubbing the ear in response to irritation (which might be caused by something like eczema).

Try not to irritate it and that can make an honest to god huge difference.

The main thing for me is that one of my ear canals has a tendency to have the ear wax slightly come loose, loose enough that I can hear crackling when I walk or chew, but not so loose that I can get it out either through hopping or my pinkie finger, which usually just packs it in harder, only to come loose later as I walk. I either have to use a Q-tip or just tolerate the crackling sound (which isn't actually all that bad, since I'm not walking or chewing most of the time).

The rule of thumb is dont put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear (aka don't put shit in your ear). Officially you should talk to your doctor about this, unofficially depending on what's going on and your anatomy (including the earwax type) you might have luck with using something like Debrox, which is available over the counter in the U.S.

If you have a history of ear infections or anything else like that then have caution.

I've had to perform it as a therapeutic service for plenty of people while I was an intern doing my ENT rotation, so you can take my word for it that it can get bad enough to affect hearing.

The body, while usually a finely oiled machine, has plenty of minor and bizarre failure modes, and some people (like me) produce more earwax than the norm, even if I don't think it actually affects my hearing. I just find q-tips satisfying.

If you do it, try to get someone else to help you (since there is a minor risk of passing out from vagal stimuli, the nerve runs along the ear canal), and use lukewarm water that feels neutral on your hand, preferably boiled or distilled water, even if I don't think that particularly matters. Cold water can make it more likely you'll pass out, and overly hot.. You can guess why that's a bad idea I'm sure.

If you're doing it yourself, I recommend sitting or lying down if possible.

I've had that pleasure before, and the annoyance of doing it to hundreds of people during my ENT rotation, but it seems like a bit of a pain compared to just popping out the cotton.

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