I’ll start: my ear wax. Several months ago, I observed what I thought to be extra wax coming out of my ears. Since then, I can’t stop trying to keep my ears clean. Wash in the shower with soap every day. Stick my finger in there when nobody’s looking to try to get some out. And so on.
I don’t use q-tips, and I know the advice is to simply let it come out when it wants. But I hate cleaning the gunk off my AirPods! Stupid ear wax, I think I feel some now.
Learn from my experience!
I was obsessed with the same thing for a time so I bought one of those blue ear bulb syringes to aid with earwax removal. I’d put earwax removal drops in my ears, wait a few minutes and then use the bulb syringe to rinse the drops out of my ears, before squeezing the remaining water out of the bulb syringe and setting it on my counter. I did this almost every day for weeks.
One day I noticed a bit of gray earwax coming out after squirting water from the bulb syringe into my ears, like a few small chunks of it. I was so excited, my persistence was finally paying off!! The next day I did it again and there were even more gray earwax chunks!! Holy shit, I must have knocked something loose! Third day it happened again and this time I was suspicious, so I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut open the bulb syringe to find that it was full of mold. I’d been squirting chunks of mold into my ears and when they fell into the sink I thought they were earwax.
Now I use a translucent bulb syringe that’s split in the middle, so I can take it apart to dry properly and I’ll see if anything is growing inside of it.
If you haven’t tried then I recommend hydrogen peroxide in your ears. I dilute it 1:1 with water, but some people use it straight from the bottle. It feels SO GOOD and helps with earwax removal.
Ok, I don’t feel so bad now. Your obsession goes WAY beyond mine. But I need to go throw out my blue bulb 🤢
Unpopular opinion: you can absolutely use Q tips if your ear canals are wider and you don’t just jam it in.
What I do is start at the entrance and twist as I go in and again as it’s coming out. My primary care has never found anything wrong with my ears.
A few years back I bought one of these on a whim and I’ve found it to be an excellent ear wax removal tool. Just take care when inserting - that’s the motion that can shove wax deeper or impact your ear drum.
A quick Googling shows that there are a ton of other tools with a wide variety of shapes and materials, but this is the one that I can personally vouch for. Cleaning the wax off of the finned end after use requires a strong jet of water, that’s the only downside I can think of.
Finally! A solution the problem that qtips are so inexpensive!
I saw a box of these on Amazon for $6. You’re really going to quibble over a few bucks?
Besides, these do a better job than wads of cotton on sticks. So it’s worth a few bucks.
Well I use like two qtips after every shower.
These are reusable. Those ones I bought a few years back are still in use.
That changes the equation enormously. I read their text, and they do say they should be discarded after a use. That could be CYA, though. Do you just wash them with soap and water, or wipe them with alcohol or something?
Oh, they say that? Weird, I distinctly recall the box saying “reusable” when I bought them years ago. I guess it’s like the thing where Q-tips are labelled as “not to be crammed into your ear-holes”, to bring it full circle.
I clean them using a hand bidet, the high-pressure stream of water from it blasts all the wax out from between the vanes. Soaking them in some kind of soapy water or solvent sounds like it’d work well too, if you don’t have a high pressure water stream readily available.
Yup. My ear canals are much wider than the average q tip, so I don’t really use them as plungers, they’re more for scraping the sides.
I am terrified of losing my hearing or otherwise damaging my ears (long story, not that interesting), so I simply refuse to use them as far in as I safely could.
I used to do that, but I’m wondering if that was part of me developing my current condition.
I’ve read that removing earwax constantly can actually cause more earwax production.
Personally I do use qtips after every shower. Most of the time I don’t get anything, and all I’m accomplishing is mopping up moisture. Once in a while I get a smear of orange wax and go in for a repeat. I think it varies wildly though; there is a big distinction between people with dry earwax vs wet, but I think there is also variation within those categories.
Yeah if you don’t have issues caused by earwax or wear hearing aids or regularly wear ear plugs for long periods of time you’re better off leaving it in. It’s there to protect your ears.
Too much earwax can clog the ear and cause hearing loss until its removed. Some people like some of my family overproduce to that point. Additionally normally it falls out of your ears at a regular pace, ear plugs can cause it to clog up. If you wear hearing aids with domes in my experience it’s not nearly as much of an issue, but I did get regular clogging back in the days that hearing aids used molds and had to have them cleaned out every year or so.
Hummingbirds. I put a feeder out and I’ve been staring at that thing for days waiting to see a hummingbird.
They’ll find it eventually, be patient. Did the same with woodpecker feeders. Took a month or two, but I got regulars now.
I’m picturing that Pablo Escobar Narcos meme
Leave it in there, it keeps out the bugs!
I just read that article about screwworms and how some lady who took a nap on the beach while on vacation had these eggs laid in her ear. You might be on to something.
I’m someone who builds up earwax easily, leading to infections.
For the last decade, I’ve been regularly scraping it out with metal spoons. I’m even used to accidentally tapping my ear drum.
Last time I was at my doctors he commented (to the intern in training) that my ear canals are well sloped and naturally clean themselves, and I corrected him. Glad to know he didn’t observe damage I’ve been causing.
there’s nothing like a clean scrape feeling you get from a metal spoon! the bamboo ones are satisfying as well. just the right amount of firmness and bend.
