BTW if you end up with an impacted ear drum or you just want to deeply clean your ears: peroxide. Just tilt your head sideways and pour it in. Let it sit for a while and it will break up enough wax to dislodge it. You might find that you can hear much better after.
one of them anyway
It’s called the Q-spot.
The reason not to do it isn’t about being careful. It’s about pushing wax deeper into your ear canal where it impacts the eardrum.
Q-tips suck at cleaning ear canals. All they do is push the damn ear wax further up inside, worsening my already bad tendency to get impacted wax in the first place. I can only imagine that people who use q-tips to clean have these cavernous canals that make family guy’s ear-sex joke actually possible.
It’s why I use those meant-for-glasses tiny screwdrivers.
Grampa tore his ear drum by using a metal screw…
I have a big head and have never understood this impacted wax you normies are always complaining about, so this Cavernous Canal Hypothesis actually makes a lot of sense to me.
Have you tried hydrogen peroxide?
It’s much, much quicker, simpler, and easier to reach into the ear canal and gently scrape out the wax. The few times I used any fluid, it was a tiresome affair, and it never really got out all of the wax that could start to build. You would have to do it every other day to prevent real buildup, and that would be a gigantic pain.
Oh, I don’t disagree regarding regular use being a pain. I used 3 q-tips after every shower (one per ear for the various crevasses, then the opposite ends of a shared one to - as you say - scoop from the main canal). For at least two reasons I wouldn’t want to use peroxide that way every day.
However, twice in my life I’ve gotten my ears clogged to the point that q-tips just made it worse. In both of those cases, peroxide worked miracles.
The peroxide didn’t work for me once the wax became impacted. Maybe if I had repeated it several times in the course of a day, but it was easier to just repeat the trip to the doctor to have them get it out. Losing your hearing absolutely sucks, and I didn’t want to delay getting it back.
For me, the impaction was only mitigated after leaving the peroxide in for an extended period.
I did have a pool-related impaction one other time before I started using q-tips regularly. I went to the doctor for that and they pushed it out using some kind of manual water pump. It worked and the obstruction came out of my ear, but until that happened it felt like earwax (and water) were going to come out of my nose. I don’t know if that’s normal, but it was unpleasant.
One last mostly unrelated (and entirely unprompted) aside: my first encounter (that I remember, at least) with q-tips was right when I was a boy approaching puberty. My mother cleaned my ears with wet q-tips and I complained of the unpleasant feeling. She told me “if you don’t keep your ears clean, no girl will ever stick her tongue down your ear!” At the time it sounded nice just to have any contact with a girl, but now that I’m an adult I have to avoid wondering about that sentence that my mother said to me.
I had a girlfriend when I was 16 that started licking my ear then tongued my ear hole while I was on the phone with my mom lying about where I was.
I’m 41 now and no one has ever done that again. It was unique.
I have licked an ear in an intimate situation. It wasn’t too uncomfortable for me, and it was something they enjoyed the sensation of.
Tongue-ing the ear hole though??? That’s fuckin evil.
When I was in my early twenties, a girl I had a crush on but who was dating my friend came up behind me and scritched my head. I’m married to a different woman now and have a kid, but I still wonder about that interaction. I can relate.
My grandpa would just use the temples/end parts of his glasses to clean his ears…
They’re actually shaped like the things you’re supposed to use instead of Q-tips
This statement is upsetting.
So did mine! It’s a worldwide old people thing
Or your grandpa had a secret other family.
What are people supposed to use if not Q-tips? I’m actually wondering cause I use Q-tips after every shower
Edit: I’ve been informed and read up at bit on it (thank you for the links too). I may also need to look into an ENT Dr. Now haha. So long good feeling of Q-tips
The cap of Bic pens!
Allows you to scoop and clean without the fear of going too deep (adults only).
I switched to just using toilet paper. Not sure how much safer it is.
I do that too, but I twist it into a screw and then twist it in my ear and it pulls the gunk out.
I went to Amazon and got an ear wax removal tool. It has an arm with a soft latex scooping tip and a camera and a light. It has wifi and you hook it up to your phone so you can see the camera. I was having custom ear plugs made and I needed to get things squeaky clean. It worked surprisingly well and is the best way to clear things out completely imo. It’s also pretty interesting to see what is going on in there. I also have a little syringe thing I keep in the shower to use on a more regular basis.
Bobby pins.
In fact, there’s a lot you don’t need to do nearly as frequently or aggressively unless there’s a specific reason for it. A common one is shampoo, where after a few days of letting it go back to normal your hair will be perfectly fine taking care of itself. I just rinse it every day and that’s been more than enough for many years.
hair
Do you notice people keeping their distance from you? Because non-washed hair (with shampoo I mean) is one of the worst smells there is. Never fails to make me gag when I walk behind a person with non-washed hair.
People say that… And yet, in middle school they did a hearing screening, and said I had reduced hearing. I told my mom “that’s crazy, my hearing is incredible, I just had earwax in my ears”. We went to the doctor anyways, the PA said she couldn’t see any earwax even though I could hear it moving around when she put the scope in my ear
I was adamant I just needed to clean my ears, so my mom grabbed some qtips from the exam room when the PA left, I cleaned my ears, and I passed the test perfectly
In my 30s I can still hear those “teen repellants” that whine at a pitch most lose in their early 20s. People look at me weird when I say I heard someone’s voice on the wind, and yet I can pinpoint individuals talking normally within a half a mile in a forest
I don’t use qtips anymore, I use a metal loop to clean my ears, but for me it’s most certainly necessary to clean them somehow
That’s called an anecdote, and while it’s rad that you’ve got super good hearing it doesn’t mean that cleaning ears is necessary for everyone.
I’m not saying it’s necessary for everyone… Even if most people don’t need it, some do. I do, despite what everyone has told me from childhood
Anecdotes aren’t good science, but they can point out bad science
Do you never use shampoo? I personally only even wet my hair once or twice a week, then wash with shampoo though.
Bar soap top to bottom. Big Shampoo has played you all for fools
Funny, I use shampoo over my whole body because the equivalent soap doesn’t have the menthol in it that I use to wake me the heck up every morning. That tingly feeling of freshness I get is phenomenal.
I use shampoo maybe once per month, usually only when necessary to remove products such as bleach/dye. Just rinsing it with water is usually enough, but when my hair starts feeling more greasy (maybe once per week), I just use conditioner to help loosen up the dirt. If you’re curious, look up “cowashing” and “no poo” for more information.
Ohh yeah. I’m currently washing my hair once a week on average, cause it gets greasy, but I forgot about conditioner helping that. I hate the few days after shampooing- my hair is so dry and smooth that it won’t stay in a ponytail for very long. Very frustrating.
I’ve tried cowashing before! I have a lot of hair, but thin individual strands, and it kinda made it too hydrated (idk how else to explain) so I lost my waves.
Q tips are wide as fuck to prevent people from injuring themselves easily i think. Really what you need is something thinner that has hook like properties and there are kits with those. Still gotta be really careful with that ofcourse. Make sure no people are around to jump scare you and causing you to accidentally ram that thing into your eardrums.
At some point i just bent a piece of wire into a loop to use that. (toothpick for scale) Thats not stainless steel tho so its gonna corrode.
But going to a professional once a year or so is probably not a bad idea either.
What… uhh what are you doing with that toothpick?
You jam that into your ear canal in lieu of a q-tip
For scale
Yeah i was expecting someone to be worried about that lol
I unfold paperclips and use the smaller end. One caveat that make me realize it’s not the best idea: the point I unfolded can break. I’ve never lost one in my ear, but I could imagine it happening.
You people shouldn’t be trusted with your health.
I just let a goat graze in my ear until it’s not hungry anymore
You really shouldn’t insert anything into your ear canal unless you are a professional, and even then probably wouldn’t recommend doing it on yourself.
If you need to clean your ears, there are products specifically made for that (no, q tips are not made for that). Hydrogen peroxide also works.
I’m not a doctor, but they make ear cleaners that are more of a scoop shape. Imo q tips suck because you are trying to scoop with something that isn’t scoop shaped. The scoop allows you to get the earwax without shoving it deeper into the ear.
One thing to bear in mind is there are two earwax types. I can only speak for my type, which is sticky.
What is the other type?
Dry and flaky I think. I think it’s wet vs dry. Maybe sticky was the wrong word
Thanks for the edification!
I think nothing but if it gets too much get it taken out professionally. I’ll have to recheck tho
try dipping the ends in cold water first
Good friend of mine for a bit of fibre stuck in there from the Q tip, it got infected and blew her ear drum…
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