Ear-Cleaning Thread (Do Not Read If I'm Trying to Impress You)

Made the mistake of flying once while in the middle of a major head cold -- had to take industrial-strength decongestants and have the doctor flush my ears after that one.

This theread needs a revival, if only to ask nabisco how his eustachian tubes have fared in the last five years, and to thank him for sharing with the class.

Ear problems are a-okay if you take care of them. There is nothing grosser than a dirty ear. I cannot imagine you being untidy in your (nabisco) ear care, tho, so there is no worries of the repellent. I reassure you that your ears are not off-putting.

That is actually really weird revive, because my left ear has been bothering me a little bit this week.

This went away almost completely a couple years ago, though! Or anyway I don't notice or think about it much. But it always crops up a little right when the weather gets really cold!

P.S. a good ear-flushing can occasionally help with this problem, but it's really not a matter of ears being dirty or wax-clogged, no more than sinus issues would be about what's in your nostrils.

i don't mind ear wax, it's like natural ear plugs?

What is in there then that blocks the tubes?

xpost -- Stop being gross.

I feel deprived for not ever being allowed to have the full ear-syringe experience...Whenever I asked doctors I've been fobbed off with a recommendation for over the counter ear-drops, and told ear-syringing is dangerous.

I frequently have strange ear pressure phenomenon - like suddenly feeling blocked in one ear, or a sudden change of pressure.

interesting. my ear drums are pretty fucked from a slew of childhood and teen years infections (an otolaryngologist once described them as trampolines that have lost their elasticity) and i have crackling every time i move my jaw. it's been years so i'm pretty much used to it and don't notice too much except that sometimes i can't hear shit and also being sick or flying on planes or wearing earbud headphones for too long can get uncomfortable.

i am an obsessive q-tipper (completely unrelated to the above). i have this really sick desire to go into a dr's office now and be like 'please please let me have the turkey baster ear treatment!!' i'm sure they would look at my like i'm completely insane.

yeah i kinda want one of those professional ear cleanings! people always say it makes your head feel lighter.

i have crackling every time i move my jaw

tza, i'm not saying this the case with you, but i had this and i went to an audiologist (i was having musician's plugs made anyway). she looked and found a hair stuck to the ear drum, and compared it to putting aluminum foil up against a vibrating speaker. went in with a tweezers and voila.

woah that's crazy!

this has gone on for years and started as a direct result of a really bad infection, though. i've had them looked at several times and the consensus is "deal with it." which i do.

i am an obsessive q-tipper (completely unrelated to the above). i have this really sick desire to go into a dr's office now and be like 'please please let me have the turkey baster ear treatment!!' i'm sure they would look at my like i'm completely insane.

I've done this, twice!...the first time they indulged me, the second time (4 years later) they said no go...

i also have the tube problem. i usually use nose sprays for that.
i also have something called tmj disorder. my jaw clicks whenever i open or close my mouth too wide. they said i should go to an oral expert to get a mouthpiece fitted.

^^^ I have this TMJ problem too. My jaw gets stuck and then will come unstuck again with a loud pop.

My left ear is completely fucked because I also have Eustachian tube dysfunction. Because of it, I have a hole in my eardrum, a cyst behind it, and 40% hearing loss. Each time I have to go to the ENT, they put this horrible metal tube in my ear like the vacums dentists use and suck shit out of my ear/off my eardrum. It is so so painful and, quite frankly, scary. You ear cleaning treatment wanting people are nuts!

wow! omg.

well, do i have to be worried about listening to my headphones too loud? i do this a lot...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/7214066.stm

Each time I have to go to the ENT, they put this horrible metal tube in my ear like the vacums dentists use and suck shit out of my ear/off my eardrum. It is so so painful and, quite frankly, scary. You ear cleaning treatment wanting people are nuts!

^^^ this. I cannot STAND having anything being flushed out of my ears. It is loud and painful and frightening, and thanks to chikdhood middle ear infection trauma, I have this uncontrollable bad reaction to such things (last time a doc tried to flush/syringe out my ear without warning I flailed/punched out so violently I sent all his tools and trays flying).

My ears are always full of really sticky liquidy gunk, and they click/pop when i swallow. Jaw clicks from tmj too.

I've just accepted it as normal for me. Dunno if it is, really. I'm not sure my hearing is all that great.

During my various ear-care adventures I became very interested in ear-cleaning, as currently discussed in this thread. One interesting fact: two separate nurses have looked into my ears and asked "Are you a musician?" Both asserted that musicians have a far higher incidence of ear-issues, from wax cloggage to ear infections to tube dysfunction; I assume this is a sound-exposure thing. Both nurses proceeded to go at me with the professional turkey-baster/ear-syringe thing, which is pretty fabulous and leaves you feeling like a maid service has gone through and aired out your entire head. (Also it roots everything out intact, so they can point to the thumb-sized plug of stuff in the water basin and say "Look, that was in your ear!") Home ear-drops and ear-bulb systems are fairly anticlimactic after that, but reasonably effective if done a few times in a row. What do you do, if anything?

I want to do this. What is it called?

I would also like to clean my ears.

ear syringing, no?

Where can I get a kit from? Boots?

Help us!!!

You are all aware that using ear-buds (q-tips) causes more wax long-term, as little bits of fibre stay in the ear canal, and your body creates more wax to isolate them? Not to mention pushing the ear wax already there further in.

That's part of the reason I want this done:

During my various ear-care adventures I became very interested in ear-cleaning, as currently discussed in this thread. One interesting fact: two separate nurses have looked into my ears and asked "Are you a musician?" Both asserted that musicians have a far higher incidence of ear-issues, from wax cloggage to ear infections to tube dysfunction; I assume this is a sound-exposure thing. Both nurses proceeded to go at me with the professional turkey-baster/ear-syringe thing, which is pretty fabulous and leaves you feeling like a maid service has gone through and aired out your entire head. (Also it roots everything out intact, so they can point to the thumb-sized plug of stuff in the water basin and say "Look, that was in your ear!") Home ear-drops and ear-bulb systems are fairly anticlimactic after that, but reasonably effective if done a few times in a row. What do you do, if anything?

x-post

Also, the wax your body puts there is to keep the canal moisturised, and to protect from infection, so it’s best to leave the inner ear alone - maybe use a damp cloth to remove any excess wax which has got to the outer ear.

I don't think you can get diy ear-syringing kits? You can get stuff that dissolves the wax, either expensive stuff like Otex or something, makde with peanut oil, has a handy dropper to make it easier to apply (helps to get someone else to do it), or just use olive oil as recommended by loads of doctors and nurses and specialists. It's a mess to apply though.

If you want a syringing just make an appointment at your GPs (it'll probably be with the nurse). I had it done a few years ago and it felt pretty great afterwards. I need to get it done again as I'm convinced there's something wrong with my hearing. I work in an ENT hospital so I befriended one of the audiologists and persuaded her to give me a full test, but then she looked in my ears and said they're full of hard wax so I need to get rid of that first, which means going back to the doctors, unless I can get the doctor to give me a referral to do it here, seeing as I'm at work and that anyway. Also she said they don't use the syringe anymore, it's more like a flushing device.

check this shit out

https://otoset.com

https://otoset.com/cdn/shop/files/Group_351_2x_8be59427-7ccc-4894-b151-a5b86575ebdf_1008x.png

madness. i had my ears syringed last year cos i got a bit deaf and for a while it was like i could hear an ant cough on the other side of the road.

then i got an infected ear PLUS covid a month or so ago and they had to give me some medical eardrops because i was completely deaf.

i want the magic headphones basically. make the headphone water go yellow.