I've had my ears syringed a couple of times/year for much of my life but our GP's nurses have stopped offering it. Some specialist companies are popping-up but it's not cheap so I'm tempted to get one of the USB otoscopes, like these:
I haven't marked this as OT because its about DIY wax removal - slightly more relevant to the group than toothbrushes ;-)
Use a cotton bud every day after a shower or bath rather than let it build up and have someone clean your ears for you.
Cheers
You should have marked it OTO?
I have also noticed that practice nurses are more reluctant to do ear syringing and even get you to sign a document, not a consent form, but something that purports to be a legal disclaimer should something go wrong.
I could be wrong but direct mechanical excavation of wax with an instrument and aided by an otoscope is only done by ENT specialists.
Nurses do irrigation (syringing) as you say, when it's offered, there is also another procedure available, aspiration, which seems to go under the name of "micro suction". I have no experience of that, but it seems some specialist nurses offer it.
The usual advice you get from health professionals regarding DIY ear care, is it's OK, as long as the object you insert is no smaller than your elbow. Seems to be an in joke.
I only mentioned syringing, but I've also had them sucked-out (aspiration, presumably) and had a Consultant (with a reflector on his forehead) fishing about with wires. The first is noisy, but preferable to syringing, the second is effective but scary.
I've heard the same "joke" :-)
If only it were that easy I would have started doing it forty+ years ago
My son suffered a punctured ear drum that has stayed punctured despite a very painful operation to rectify it.
I would strongly recommend putting a few drops of olive oil in the ear and leaving it there - head on one side for a few minutes. Perhaps a wodge of cotton wool to stop it leaking onto your clothes. Do that for a few days, and hopefully the wax will flow out completely safely.
I syringe my own ears, I suppose about twice a year. I have a plastic
20ml syringe with a short nozzle (about 1cm). I put some warm water in the hand basin, a dash of detergent (Fairy Liquid in my case), a dash of antiseptic (something like Dettol but not Dettol as I hate the smell), a towel over my shoulders and I syringe away quite powerfully and repeatedly until I get a very strong rushing/roaring in my ear each time I do it, and a big gob of wax comes out into the hand basin. Been doing it like that for many decades.OK, so I have hearing aids in both ears now, and the audiologist nurse whom I see about every umptytump years was horrified that I do my own ears, and that I ought to follow the procedure of softening the wax first with some wax-softening jollop before getting them professionally sucked out. But as I pointed out, before that procedure was introduced, flushing ears out with a water jet under pressure was the standard technique, which is no different to what I do, and having to make an appointment just to get them done professionally uses up half a day, whereas I do them myself in my own time and it takes only five minutes.
Agreed! We chronic sufferers get little sympathy...
You need to use drops for a week or two before the treatments being discussed, I'm not sure about curettage by a surgeon, perhaps they like the wax to remain crusty.
There are at least three classes of eardrops, oils, sodium bicarbonate, and urea hydrogen peroxide. I have only used the first group, I have no idea if I should be trying the others.
I used to use oil products like Ceremol and Earex, but they make my wife heave because of the pungent smell, so now I use cutlery olive oil which is a hell of a lot cheaper per ml, but not so effective IMHO
The overwhelming body of medical (and other[1]) opinion is against you. It tends to push wax further into the ear. And one slip with a cotton bud and you can end up with serious problems.
Even syringing is now deprecated[2].
[1] I was brought up on the simple rule that you should not put anything smaller than an elbow in your ear [2]
I and others I know have found urea peroxide more effective than other drops - and that's without syringing. IIRC you need a pharmacy for the stronger sort.
That's interesting. I have been told I have particularly narrow canals.
Canals are in the inner ear, behind the eardrum. Conventional methods of wax removal won't normally affect your canals.
There are proprietary ear drops which work rather faster than olive oil. You can hear them fizzing when dissolving the wax.
Bad idea. It will end up impacting the wax at the end of your ear canal.
Go to Amazon, eBay (or other favourite retailer) and search for "wax curette".
It's very easy to curette your own ears.
Tim
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The term "ear canal" is commonly used for the "external ear canal". The other ones are your semicircular canals.
Tim
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I've been doing this for about 45 years, nearly every day. Yes, you have to be careful there's no-one around who might knock you. Rotate the bud as you do it. My ears have been checked and are very clean.
I also wipe my own arse.
Cheers
I've been doing this for about 45 years, nearly every day. Yes, you have to be careful there's no-one around who might knock you. Rotate the bud as you do it. My ears have been checked and are very clean.
I also wipe my own arse.
Cheers
Cotton buds have a myriad of uses! :-)
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