Month: January 2014

Hearing aids aren’t very fun at the best of times. When they constantly stop up with earwax they can be downright maddening! Take heart, this is a universal frustration and, for the most part, can’t be helped. Your ear produces wax as both a skin conditioner and as a defensive mechanism to prevent the intrusion (or expedite the removal) of …

Earwax (or, more properly, cerumen) is really cool stuff! It is a bug repellent, dust catcher and skin conditioner; it also has both anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. A little earwax is a good thing! Most people don’t like the wet feeling they have after a shower and will use a cotton swab to dry out the canal. An effective solution …

A patient came in last week with tremendous pain in his right ear. He was cleaning his ears with a cotton swab and succeeded only in firmly packing the earwax further in his ear. In an effort to remove the wax, he used an over-the-counter wax softener that made the impacted wax swell and put additional pressure in his eardrum. …