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Managing earwax

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In reply to @Neville

Fine if he wants to do that, but in my book he ought at least to be open about it. With so many videos going round peddling unproven, false and even dangerous pseudo-scientific claims (particularly of late about covid-19) a healthy dose of scepticism is in order.

In reply to @philip.leriche

Microsuction is massively effective. No action ‘causes’ more wax to be produced, people either accumulate it or they don’t. The people who suffer most are those with Keratosis Obturans - skin shedding, when the wax binds ‘onion layers’ of skin together.

We see half a dozen people a day in clinic for microsuction and they all benefit from it - we offer a free follow-up check with video-otoscopy so people can monitor their own accumulation.

In reply to @Nikita

The use of Irrigation has been contra-indicated in the UK for a few years due to bacterial risk, physical trauma/scarring to the tymp/middle ear and now as a Covid-19 Aerosol Generating Procedure. I imagine you should be getting some advice from your professional body/insurers on this pretty soon.

Unfenestrated micro-suction has been identified as a potential AGP issue too; if the tymp is compromised then the EAM effectively becomes part of the upper respiratory tract. So we’re phone triaging ahead of appointments and letting people with TM/middle ear issues seek the advice of an in the first instance.

@Um_bongo said:

physical trauma/scarring to the tymp/middle ear

Oy. Indeed. There are a bunch of irrigation systems that don’t have enough pressure to do any damage. The main thing I wish were discouraged here (covid aside) is with the big silver syringe.

I am finding this very interesting. I have not read anything my professional order has written about ear irrigation being a potential transmitter of covid… I think i will email them.

I have worn hearing aids since 2016 and have taken a different approach than what I’ve read here. I’m fastidious about cleaning my ears in the shower every day. I use one of those bulb syringes to irrigate my ears, about 4-5 irrigation’s in each ear. I then use soap and lather up the parts of my ear that I can reach with my finger, to include behind the ear where the unit rests. Then I rinse that soap off (and out for any down my ear canal). The soap seems to further remove much of the oily stuff that drains out.

Doing this routine, I have had zero issues with wax. And I feel a little bad about saying this (like I’m neglecting something), but I’ve only changed those wax traps on two occasions since 2016 (only as a preventative maintenance measure albeit at a neglectful frequency), and have changed the rubber things 2-3 times since 2016. Every time a doctor looks in my ear, he/she comments on how clear/clean it is - no wax at all.

When I irrigate my ears In the shower each day, the fist 2 times, what drains out feels oily. The 4th or 5th irrigation feels less oily.

When I am drying myself, I’ll then use toilet paper to dry my ears, to the extent they can absorb water down my canal. I’m not stuffing the toilet paper down my ear canal, like with a ramrod, just however far my index finger can get it to absorb with the toilet paper just flat against it. I’ll do that 2-3 times in each ear until it no longer shows that it’s wet (using different places of the sheet doubled over until it is dry each time.

My ears are tremendous wax producers. Before hearing aids, every 1-2 years, I used to need intervention to remove wax build up. I would wake up and feel like I had one of those foam ear plugs in my ear. I’d go to the corpsman and they would do what they could to mine the wax out, to include irrigating it. After much effort, clumps of ear wax would drop into the pan. The chunks were so big, I could actually hear them drop, and the miners were amazed.

For “sanitation” peace of mind, I’ve found a translucent bulb syringe that will come apart so I can clean and inspect it. I worried about what may grow inside those things. Again, the bulb syringe is what I use to irrigate my ears.

Recommendation: To irrigate your ears, don’t just grab the bulb syringe used to clear mucous from your child or grandchild‘s nose. Get a new one!

It was my audiologist at Balboa in San Diego that recommended the bulb syringe. I don’t squirt it hard, just enough to send it down the ear canal and it trickles out on its own. It doesn’t hurt at all but I wouldn’t call it soothing or comfy. Obviously, I’m used to the feeling by now. I find that just holding my ear up to the shower just doesn’t get much water moving in then out of the canal.

Kevin

I’ve been looking at bulb syringes on Amazon and eBay but haven’t seen one that comes apart. Can you point me to one as an example? Unless you can clean the inside and effectively dry it as well then all sorts of things might be growing inside it by the time you come to use it again.

Yesterday evening I decided I’d had enough. I’d been putting drops in on and off for 3½ weeks and nothing ever came out. I have a bunch of small plastic pipettes. The stem has graduations up to 1ml and the bulb can’t have a capacity of more than 2ml so from what other people have said round here it seemed almost impossible that I could do any damage. I squirted tepid tap water into each ear and after half a dozen squirts a mass of wax came out of each - the difference in my hearing is incredible! For safety, after giving boh ears plenty of time to drain I put some urea peroxide (carbamide) drops in for its disinfectant properties. This morning the improvement is maintained, and in fact when I put my hearing aids in I had to turn them down several notches as everything was so LOUD!

The only problem I now have is that I’ll no longer be able to ignore the cat when he sits on the spare bed behind my chair in the study and loudly demands his tea an hour or more before time!

And the other problem is how I break it to my audiologist that I’ve flouted her advice not to try and irigate my ears myself.

i bought this from amazon and haven’t yet used it: https://www.amazon.ca/Système-lavage-kit-doutils-démontage/dp/B07H95W6M3/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=ear+washing&qid=1589217543&sr=8-585

it is identical to the kit they use in my clinic, i go about once a year to my health clinic and the nurses use a similar irrigator to flush with warm water

we are told to put olive oil in our ears for 3 days before the appointment, it seems to work just great and they flush out the wax

i have also heard tat dropping olive oil in regularly and just flushing under the shower works also but haven’t done that

i tried the peroxide kit once and it just plugged my ears up badly, i had to go to the clinic to get them cleaned

In reply to @frogman

@frogman said:

i bought this from amazon and haven’t yet used it: https://www.amazon.ca/Système-lavage-kit-doutils-démontage/dp/B07H95W6M3/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=ear+washing&qid=1589217543&sr=8-5

it is identical to the kit they use in my clinic, i go about once a year to my health clinic and the nurses use a similar irrigator to flush with warm water

I’ve not had much ax issues, but before hearing aids I had an earache once. Went to the doctor, and they used a sprat bottle that looked pretty much like that. The med assistant pretty much just seemed to pull the trigger aggressively without regard.

SInce hearing aids I haven’t had much problem, but once in a while I’ll get a bit itchy so I know something’s up. I’ve taken to using drops as a pre-treat, followed by squirting in warm water using a syringe that came from the pharmacy for administering medicine to one of my kids. I carefully but forcefully just squirt syringe full shots in repeatedly. Given what they did in the doc’s office it seems about the same force. Seems to work well enough but I keep thining of buying a proper ear flusher like that

they use the same system in my clinic (it is called “elephant ears”) and yes, they flush fairly vigorously and it works very well

the key is to put in olive oil for 2 or even 3 days before you do the flush to loosen the wax

i don’t think my clinic is cleaning ears quite yet, they are on hold but when they start again, i will try this at home, i want to have a back up if i don’t get it right

though frankly i think it really is matter of the olive oil and then making sure the water is the right temp, definitely not too cold or that will cause problems and then flushing vigorously but not aggressively

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