Put down the cotton swabs! And bobby-pins and pen tops …

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. Ouch!

Needless to say, we got him right in and safely removed the build-up. He is now on a quarterly cleaning plan and had promised to leave the ear cleaning to us.

What should you do if you feel like you have a wax build-up? There is a tried and true home remedy that you can read about here. But first, go see your audiologist and let her check for any problems or abnormalities and possibly give your eat canals a proper cleaning. Once she gives you the ‘all clear’ then feel free to start with an at-home maintenance program.

Check in next week for another fun post about earwax!