I have been using Q-Tips for quite some time. (Waits for everyone to stop yelling at me)
The other day, after stepping out of the shower, I used a q-tip, then noticed that my ear was clogged. I attributed this to water… but the water didn’t go away. I suppose I had pushed wax in my ear with the qtips over time that it clogged my ears.
So, I got a bottle of ear drops and an ear irrigator. It seems to work, but nothing to drastic. I can tell it’s clogged still. I’ve heard of olive oil as a remedy, ear drops, and ear candling. I’ve tried ear candling which seems to have a minor affect on ridding my ear of wax. The next step is the doctor.
Any other advice for cleaning ears? What does the doctor do to clean the ears?
My ex used to go to an ear doctor for regular cleanings - apparently they used a jet of water to basically blast the wax out. He had to get it done; after 6 months he’d have a hard time hearing because of the buildup.
I used Q-Tips, too, for decades, without incident. Then a couple of months back, while in the shower, I got some water in my ear. It wouldn’t come out. So with my trusty Q-Tip, I went in there to release that water. What happened instead is that I pushed a blob of wax up against my ear drum. So now, not only is the water still in there, but I am almost completely deaf in one ear, except for the sound of the water squishing whenever I move my head.
I called the doctor, but I couldn’t get in for two weeks. This was clearly not an emergency. So my wife went to the drug store and brought back a bottle of Ear Wax Relief drops. After three or four treatments over an evening, I was a bit worried that nothing was happening - and in addition to a puddle of water in there, I was also accumulating a puddle of ear drops. But after my shower the next morning, the wax freed itself, and it hasn’t been a problem since.
I suspect that your doctor would give you much the same treatment as I got without one, and charge you a lot more than the $8 for the ear drops and the visit.
My sister does this once a year, and I think at least half her motivation is to gross me out by describing the process to me every time.
The doctor pours or squirts a fizzling solution of some kind into her ear, then she says her ear sounds like it’s full of Pop-Rocks for about five minutes, then it pukes out a lump of wax. My guess it’s that it’s some hydrogen-peroxide type of solution. She does say that afterward, her hearing is greatly improved, as well as her ears just plain feeling better.
I used to work at a job that required me to wear earplugs and I had a problem with wax build up. I 'd go to the doctor and have it done one of two ways. One way was with a Waterpik, and the other was just a syringe filled with warm water. I think it depended on the nurse that did it what tool was used. I found the syringe method to be more pleasant, it seemed to clear them out faster. It was always a nice feeling to get my ears cleaned, and I could always tell the difference in my hearing.
My doctor just sent me to the store to pick up the irrigator. She said to stay far away from the ear candles, as there was a chance of having hot wax destroy my eardrum, which is something I wanted to avoid.
Of course, I’m no doctor myself so I can offer no medical advice.
A doctor has cleaned out my ears with irrigation, too.
At home, I use a method which is probably completely unsafe and which nobody should do…I use a bobby pin to gently scrape out the accumulated wax and gunk. I wipe the bobby pin after each pass, and clean it with alcohol after each session. This gets out an amazing quantity of greasy wax and the occasional hair. I’m very careful and very gentle with it, but I’m sure that all the medical people reading that just got a major case of the heebie-jeebies.
I still use cotton swabs occasionally, and I get a lot of wax out with those, but nothing beats the old bobby pin. I think that my ears produce a lot of oil, like my face does.
I used to use bobby pins in my hair. Sometimes I’d leave them around the family computer, only to later find the bent part just COVERED with a blob of earwax. I’m not certain, but I suspect that Qadgop may have had something to do with this.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one that uses bobby pins for this purpose. The little loop at the closed end is perfect for it. I stopped though because I ended up with a couple of really nasty ear infections that I thought might have been related (but may very well not have been).
I’ve cleaned many an ear in a doctor’s office. When I first started doing it, I would stand behind the patient so they didn’t see me gagging. The stuff that comes out can be so nasty you wouldn’t believe. But after a while I got used to it and was very good at it.
The magic bubbling popping-causing potion is half hydrogen peroxide, half water. In one office, we used Colace, which is a stool softening liquid, to soften the wax first. I don’t know if you can get that over the counter, but if you can I highly recommend it. One of the medical journals did a study and found Colace to be the most effective thing.
What you want to do is go to the drugstore and get a big-ass syringe, like 30ccs. Get a basin and fill it with the magic potion and get someone to hold the top back corner of your ear up and have them squirt the solution in there a few times, holding a basin under your ear and you’ll want to drape with a couple towels. Stuff will come out.
One office I worked in had the waterpik thing, and while it seems so great- the water goes in through one hose and comes out through another and back into the sink- it didn’t work very well, IMO.
I’ve seen doctors do the scraping thing with curettes, but I wouldn’t want to do it that way.
I don’t know if I could ever have MY ears cleaned out, because spraying water in my ears is just one sensation that I can NOT tolerate. ugh.
Oh yeah, I’ve heard that they have ultrasonic ear-cleaners. I’ve never seen one or anything, but if they actually exist, that’s going to be the way to go for me. No water, no scraping, no muss no fuss.
And yes, the ear-candling thing- bad. Quackery.
I have had mine cleaned several times with the water and syringe at the doctor"s office. I was doing a lot of woodworking and that seemed to be part of the cause and I was always amazed at the amount of wax and crud that comes out of there. It sounded like I was in a tunnel for several minutes after they cleaned them too.She used to tell me to never use anything but your elbow to clean out your ears versus using q-tips.
Actually just the other day a friend told me “Hey its about time to clean out your ears buddy” so I put a small amount of hydrogen peroxide in each ear for about 3 minutes each, which really loosened the wax buildup and I got the rest with q- tips, anyway it was pretty gross :eek: , by the way is it bad to just let the hydrogen peroxide “sit” in your ear or should you keep your ear at maybe an angle to let it pour back out?
Well… I guess bobby pins have more than one purpose. haha.
Anyways… upon reading the responses, I now realize that a doctor just uses a higher pressure stream of water. So, I decided to press a little harder on the “syringe” after applying the ear drops… it worked!
instead of using a light stream of water, I used a stronger one… and needless to say, a stream of really gross gunk ended up in the sink and left my ears cleaner and I am now hearing better than before.
The SDMB just saved me over 100$ on a doctors visit. wonderful!
trublmakr, thanks for the very informative post. I think I will give this a try. My hearing is already not great and someone suggested I try cleaning out my ears before going for a hearing test. I Q-tip after every shower (mainly to dry out my ear canal), but I don’t get much wax at all. Others in my family are prodigious wax producers, though.
So, the hydrogen peroxide/water solution works well? I have both. Okay for a six year old? Can I use the bulb syringe that we had for sucking boogers out of our daughter when she was a baby? It’s been cleaned and hasn’t been used for booger-sucking for many years. And how do you hold your head when you flush your ears? Upright letting the solution naturally drain? Downward so the solution drains faster? Back, to hold the solution in for a bit? How long do you leave it in?
Colace is available by prescription, but when I went to the pharmacist at Walgreens after WhyKid’s surgery this summer, he told me he’d fill it for $40 if I wanted, but that a $6 bottle of stool softener in aisle 4 was exactly the same thing, and even the same dosage. There are several stool softeners out there, the one in Colase is docusate sodium. It’s available in tablets, gel-caps, liquid and syrup, under several brand and store names.
But what do I do with it? Is it taken orally? Disolved into the water/hydrogen peroxide mixture?
yeah, I knew someone with a metal allergy who used bobby pins. Bad idea. No idea what she does now.
I generally just use straight Hydrogen Peroxide (the stuff you get at the drug store cheap) … I’ll lay down on the bed and pour a capful in my ear, lie there for a bit, flip and repeat for the other ear. Then swab it out with a q-tip.
When I had a bad clog in one ear, the doc put some stuff in it (hydrogen peroxide, I suppose) stuffed the ear with cotton and told me to come back the next day. He irrigated the next morning and it all came out easy as could be.
I had wax removed just two days ago. The cheapskate way (which appeals to me) is to make an appointment with the nurse for 3 days hence, then pour a little olive oil in the affected ear while lying on your side. Wiggle the ear about to get the oil to penetrate completely and after a couple of minutes get up, holding a tissue to soak up the excess oil. Do this morning and evening for the 3 days and then the nurse will remove the softened wax with warm water and a syringe. Completely natural and completely free. It’s not really a good idea to poke around in there with a paper clip or similiar weapon. As was mentioned earlier anything smaller than your elbow shouldn’t be poked in your ear (unless by a medical person).
