That irrigation method sounds nice, except I wonder if “a history of middle ear infections” means recently, or ever? I had them all the time when I was a little kid, finally had vents put in and that seemed (IIRC) to do the trick.
No, just a little blue squeeze bulb.
Uh… wow. Just wow…
You must have some huge ears… :eek:
Me too. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences (probably #1 of the pain-free kind) I’ve ever had. There’s nothing to make you panic like being able to feel something moving around in your ear and not knowing how to get it out. I was still upset even after I got it out, and I no longer like little moths.
I’m a medical assistant and have had to clean out peoples’ ears many, many times. It is so hideously disgusting. When I first started out, I would gag over and over, and try to not let the patient see me. But then, just like with anything else, you get used to it and I did. I never did get to the “oooh, that’s cool!” stage with it, but I could do it. I still do it to my 10-year-old. I no longer do it at work because now I don’t work for a doctor that does it.
Most places we used huge syringes, with equal parts of water and hydrogen peroxide. Once in a while there’d be a patient that we’d have to send home with drops to soften the wax and then they’d come back. We didn’t use no special fancy eardrops, either- we used good old Colace, a stool softener. In one place, an urgent care, we had a machine to do it- you hooked it up to the sink and it worked like a waterpik, except the water came back out of tubing back into the sink instead of just spilling out.
I can not STAND to have water in my ears, so I doubt I can ever have it done to me. But I don’t seem to have any problems with it so that’s good.
I have NEVER cleaned my ears out with a solution. I really think I should but now I’m scared to.
I sincerely hope I never need this knowledge, but just in case … how DO you get a moth out of your ear canal?
Apparently so. When I buy a pair of earbuds, I always have to use the largest set of tips in the package. My external ears are proportional to my head, but I do have a very large head.
As this link says, you put baby oil in your ear and that dislodges it. Usually. Fortunately, that worked for me.
This happened to me too. And you’re right that it is unbelievably unpleasant. The worst of it is that the moth wants to bury itself deeper to escape the jam it’s in. Aaaugh! :eek:
Just use blunt tweezers (or have someone else do it). If that fails, go to a doctor.
On preview, I think I like elfkin477’s better.
Turn the little light off in your head.
In other words, close your mouth.
I haven’t had a moth, but I DID have something with entirely too many legs crawl into my ear once while I was asleep. I let out a bloodcurdling scream, shook my husband awake, and hollered at him to get some tweezers and a flashlight. I got up and danced around, shaking my head, while my husband groggily tried to find some tweezers (we keep the flashlights in one spot, in case the power goes out, so he knew where to look for it). The whatever it was fell out onto the floor while my husband came back, and he stomped on it. So I could tell it had too many legs for comfort, but I couldn’t identify the species. I was just glad to get it OUT of my ear. It was squirming and scratching and it was HORRIBLE.
Oh, and that’s one of the worst ways to wake up, too, with something squirming in your ear. I’m not much of a screamer, so Bill thought that I was really in pain or something.
When my daughter was 11 she had a lot of pain in her ears, so of course we had the doctor take a look. He couldn’t see in there because of the gunk, so he flushed them. The chunks in the catch basin were at least as big as the one in the OP, and then she was dizzy for about a week. Apparently the stuff had gotten so impacted that if affected her inner ear a bit. She’s supposed to clear out her ears with the bulb syringe regularly, but she doesn’t. Maybe I’ll show her the picture.
Young girls aren’t supposed to need to fart, let alone have to flush disgusting substances from their ears.
Wait. You have vents in your ears?
I had a beetle in my ear when I was a kid. I freaked out and had my mom look in my ear. She got mad at me for lying and sent me back to bed with the promise of a spanking if I woke her up again. I sat in my room crying for a couple of hours, feeling that thing wiggling and spazzing out way deep in my ear. Eventually after slamming the other side of my head and shaking my ear upside down over my pillow, it fell out. It was about the size of a kernel of corn and sort of copper colored. It flew away. I slept with my head under the pillow for a few years after that.
That’s what I keep telling the young “ladies” I birthed and raised. It’s not working.
I had an ant crawl in while I was sleeping once. Sounded like a heard of elephants skipping around the floor above. I’ve posted about it before and I’d link but since both “ear” and “ant” are too short to search for I’m SOL.
I, too, was woken up rudely by a bug in my ear. Horrible, horrible. Even after the bug was out, it felt like it was still in there for another couple of hours. Argh. Just thinking about it is making me twitch.