Never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear! Cotton swabs are for cleaning bellybuttons, not ears. You have probably heard these admonitions from relatives and doctors since childhood"Śread on to find out what they meant.
The Outer Ear and Canal
The outer ear is the funnel-like part of the ear you can see on the side of the head, plus the ear canal (the hole which leads down to the eardrum).
The ear canal is shaped somewhat like an hourglass-narrowing part way down. The skin of the outer part of the canal has special glands that produce earwax. This wax is supposed to trap dust and dirt particles to keep them from reaching the eardrum. Usually the wax accumulates a bit, dries out and then comes tumbling out of the ear, carrying dirt and dust with it. Or it may slowly migrate to the outside where it can be wiped off. The ear canal may be blocked by wax when attempts to clean the ear push wax deeper into the ear canal and cause a blockage. Wax blockage is one of the most common causes of hearing loss.
Should You Clean Your Ears?
Wax is not formed in the deep part of the ear canal near the eardrum, but only in the outer part of the canal. So when a patient has wax blocked up against the eardrum, it is often because he has been probing his ear with such things as cotton-tipped applicators, bobby pins, or twisted napkin corners. These objects only push the wax in deeper. Also, the skin of the ear canal and the eardrum is very thin and fragile and is easily injured.
Earwax is healthy in normal amounts and serves to coat the skin of the ear canal where it acts as a temporary water repellent. The absence of earwax may result in dry, itchy ears.
Most of the time the ear canals are self-cleaning; that is, there is a slow and orderly migration of ear canal skin from the eardrum to the ear opening. Old earwax is constantly being transported from the ear canal to the ear opening where it usually dries, flakes, and falls out.
Under ideal circumstances, you should never have to clean your ear canals. However, we all know that this isn't always so. If you want to clean your ears, you can wash the external ear with a cloth over a finger, but do not insert anything into the ear canal.
As I picked up a payphone the other day I noticed that many people must not clean their ears.....rather discusting if you ask me. [:'(]
My phone at work is clean....but I don't hear well. Maybe I'll try letting the wax build up and see if that helps.....certainly couldn't be from all the LOUD music I've listened to over the years.
I had to go to the doctor once as a kid because I couldn't hear very well fromm my left ear , he flushed a plug of wax 1/2" thick out of the ear and advised my Mom to clean my ears better in future . I've kept the wax under control ever since and the problem didn't return .
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Kevin Haendiges
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I'm definitely an over-producer. I take care of things at home most of the time with some peroxide and a syringe, but sometimes it's too much even for that. Pain in the butt....
I posted this because I was sitting in the class room and a mass of ear wax was ready to come out. My wife is disgusted with my ear wax and I do clean more often since married.
Luckily I do not need to post about nose problems.
What they fail to mention is there is more than just wax build-up in the ear. The white powdery substance we all know and love is from deposits of toxins. The ear is one place the body uses as a toxic waste dump. A build-up of this stuff isn't great in the long run.
I cone my ears about every three months. It's a simple device of wax covered gauze formed into a cone, or funnel about an inch wide at the top and small enough at the other end to fit just inside the outer ear canal. It's about 12" long. Lay flat on your side, have your wife or whoever light it and hold it in your ear until it burns down to about 3-4" above your head. Takes out the big plugs of ear wax and the white powdery stuff. Works great. If you take a lot of scrips, or even head ache medication, you will have a lot of it in your ear - your first coning will blow your mind at how much crap is in your ear canal. Stick your finger in your ear right now - I'll bet you have some white powder on it. Wax is good as the article says though and it's not recommended to cone very often.
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We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a civilization, it expects what never was and what never will be.
Ear candles are a crock. That crap that you "sucked" out of your ear is nothing more than burnt wax from the candle itself. I managed a health food, and we sold plenty of candles to burnouts and urban psychotics left over from the 60's. Bunch of BS. If anything, it offers you a placebo effect.
Ear wax is healthy.
