You’re just removing the obstructions between the bugs and your ears, you know.
Get a helmet.
Paging Lust4Life!
OMG whimpers
There are other orifices they can crawl into, ya know.
[Insert joke about tying back other hair here. ]
Had a june bug crawl in my ear as a child. The worst part was that it happened after watching the Star Trek movie “The Wrath of Con”. It was painful and it bled profusely, had to have it extracted at the emergency room, I still have it in a pill bottle.
Had a gnat get into my ear on a camping trip when I was around 7. Horribly painful. Family friend got it out (I vaguely remember tweezers were involved).
I hate you. I hate the OP and every last one of you who bumped this thread such that it came up for me to see now. Why, for the love of Pete couldn’t one of you have bumped it at the right time for me to see it yesterday? It’s a conspiracy!!!
I’ve had a weird itchy burny earache for two days now, which is definitely in the outer ear canal and not the inner ear, but very deep down.
I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon to have it checked out.
I have to leave work now and take my daughter to “Disney on Ice” where I will be entombed until at least 9:30 tonight.
There is absolutely nothing I can do in the mean time to find out whether this is indeed a bug, as my twitchy, horrified, suggestible little mind has now concluded.
Curse you! Curse you every one!
:eek:
You poor dear… Disney on Ice…
Oh, yeah, the ear thing too. 
TruCelt, It’s not a bug. If it were a bug, you’d know it.
As QtM mentions, it’s very common.
How annoying a bug in the ear is is dependent on how vigorous it is and how much/often it’s touching the tympanic membrane. If you get a real buzzy critter touching the TM, it’s almost unbearable, and a patient might present literally screaming. If it’s just a frightened crawly thing trying to cower in the canal, it might just tickle a tiny bit. The canal is not especially sensitive, but the tympanic membrane is, and by design magnifies vibrations.
A quick water flush is an easy thing to try first, and safe at home, with anything that doesn’t squirt with too much pressure. Fancier ways range to things like squirting in lidocaine (not under any skin, but just flooding the canal with it) in an effort to make the bug chill out.
At home, don’t put anything sharp in the canal. Matter of fact, don’t put anything in there that fits in there. A ruptured TM hurts, is quite bothersome, sometimes needs surgical repair, and sometimes leaves permanent damage.
Well, after an incredibly difficult evening (but DoI was actually quite good as kiddie theatre goes!) I went home and doused the ear canal with H2O2. It fizzed WAY more than usual, and
TMI Alert:
The residue smelled of infection.
I filled and rinsed 3-4 times and let it sit for a while, and nothing much changed and noting came out in the wash.
So I do think it’s just an infection. But of course I’m not completely convinced and didn’t sleep too well.
Note to those of you who are laughing: It’s OK really. I would too. 
Just to help you all out. John Speke the famous explorer of Africa, who ran into this with no medical assistance closer than a few months hike.
Proof positive, once again, that the Q-Tips people made a BIG mistake when they started telling you not to stick their swabs in your ears.