is everyone allowed their own ear wax thread?

^^^a man in the pay of Big Punctured Ear Drum

BPE

This is an object removed from my left ear earlier today.
http://i64.tinypic.com/29y5gdx.jpg
My doctor told me it's the woolly part of a Q-Tip.
I haven't used Q-Tips since 2006.
I advise against using Q-Tips.

gnarly!!!!!!!!!!

WOW!

the only thing i use q tips for is cleaning out my belly button

beautiful :)

http://i67.tinypic.com/25guvz5.gif

can you hear better now?

also: nice, esby.

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge5/image_6617e-Oumuamua.jpg

https://img.purch.com/h/1000/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5saXZlc2NpZW5jZS5jb20vaW1hZ2VzL2kvMDAwLzA1OS80NzYvb3JpZ2luYWwvc2luZ2xlLWJ1bGxldC5qcGc=

xposts, the woolly blob soaked up bathwater and caused an infection resulting hearing loss, so yes, I can hear better now.
The doctor also asked if I was a smoker.
I said, yes, five a day, do I have bad breath?
She said, no, I can tell by your pharynx and your nasal mucosa being all red, same thing with all smokers.
I carefully advise against smoking, but it's your choice.

Sorry for your loss.

that is one of the greatest photos of a 13-year-old earwaxed q-tip that i have ever seen

#ffs

i saw my GP and tue and asked her abt tinnitus and she had a peek with her little ear-peer lamp and said i can book you for a proper audio test but they're also full of wax u kno and they'll be cross if you turn up like that

so i am trying to dislodge the wax with olive oil and etc and right now it is in the half way stage of not full of wax but what there is is reducing my hearing by abt half (fairly sure i listened to eurovision on screaming volume last night w/o really realising, all vol knobs on max -- apologies to my neighbours if so)

i sent off to amazon for a little ear syringe, fingers x-ed that helps -- this only happens every three years or so but for a non-painful condition it makes me SO miserable

she booked the audio test also, bcz the tinnitus is real and not the cause of the hearing loss i don't think (it's only a few days old)

I think the NHS has moved out of offering wax clearing services? I never had a chance to use them.

But a lot of microsuction places have spring up, and even Specsavers offers that service now.

I became aware of my tinnitus during covid. It was as if had a tape hiss noise has been turned up in my ears. Now that my infection is over, I am aware that there is a permanent very low level background hiss. It doesn’t seem to bother me unduly, and I guess it might have been around for a some time.

I'm a long term sufferer with ear wax build-up and I agree that it's utterly fucking miserable. Basically, nothing works except syringing/microsuction and, since the NHS stopped being interested, I've just accepted that I have to pay £65 once every couple of years and that's that. As Luna says, there will be lots of places offering the microsuction service. Get booked in and keep oiling in the meantime.

Going through exactly the same thing at the moment. I have periodic problems with my left ear whereby my hearing tends to get dull especially when I have colds. However this current bout is dragging on. Went to the GP: right ear fine, left ear full of wax. Got the eardrops - actually a spray this time - in the ear and almost instantly something that was almost like pebble of wax plopped out of my ear. Still didn't help much with the hearing though. Next I get the rubber syringe thing, which entails basically squirting some lukewarm water in your ear and waiting for the wax and water to flow out, all you end up with is water in your ear, as far as I can tell. Went back to the GP and he says there's still some wax in there so carry on with the eardrops. I had the exact same experience trying to watch Eurovision too!

Shocked at people getting GP appointments. I just get directed to an online form and then managed out. Option one - have you tried phoning 111? Option two - consider going to A&E? We’re sorry we are unable to help you on this occasion.

I did get my ears de-waxed by a GP a few years ago, but it did fuck all to help tinnitus. They were pretty bad - a nurse tried to do it first but couldn't get it out so had to fetch a doctor to finish the job.

The Times is covering microsuction today: "I had my ears ‘vacuumed’ — it’s so satisfying"

It's behind a paywall, but key points of this very positive £89 experience:

One minute you’re living in a waxy fishbowl, cringing at the sound of your own chewing and yelling at your partner to just speak up for God’s sake, then — shlrrrrp, shlrrrrp, glug, vroom — the pressure releases and you’re jumping at the ping of a microwave.
In my case, the microsuction followed an unsuccessful attempt at irrigation, during which the doctor — not my GP, but one near work that I knew offered it — grew increasingly despondent as the dam of wax held firm. Eventually she gave up, passing me the details of Hearology, a chain of clinics in central London (there are many others that provide similar services, along with some branches of Specsavers)....

And so it was that, last Tuesday, I found myself lying on a treatment couch as a nurse gently inserted a miniature cone into my ear, followed by a thin probe and . . . ooh. It’s hard to describe the precise sensation of wax being sucked out, except to say it brought to mind those videos of pythons eating small animals in which the shape of the prey remains visible as it slides down the snake’s body. Afterwards, I felt briefly dizzy, then oddly jumpy, startled by the unfamiliar clarity of bicycle bells and building works.

The next morning, this was replaced by a more uncomplicated sensation: complete elation. .... I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so popular as when word got out at The Times that I’d had my ears “done” and a procession of aurally frustrated correspondents passed by inquiring as to the details.

used a syringe on my own ears for the first time (after several days with olive oil and then OTEX™️)

it's kind of a pleasant sensation followed by an annoying sensation (= there's no way you don't get water all down you, maybe i shd do it in the bath lol)

hearing much better now but i think there's still wax in there (my tinnitus is no better but i wasn't expecting it to cure that, in conclusion never listen to swans live lads)

I've become quite adept at the syringe over the years, I think my earchitecture is very welcoming to wax inhabitants. I went to my GP once to have him deal with what felt like a large blockage. He drew a circle on his white board to indicate my ear canal, then a smaller circle inside it, which I took to be the blockage. The smaller circle was actually the open area, everything else was the wax.

got mine syringed by my then new family doctor 10 years ago (at her urging, after using some of the drug store oil stuff) and didn't make much difference.

yall who've been through the ringer with this, do you find rinsing them out in the shower good for maintenance?

earchitecture!

several days of debrox once flushed a pea-sized chunk of wax out of me which fled down the drain before i could capture and properly admire it. miss u boo <3

cats think earwax is delicious. yours or theirs or anyone’s, they love it all and it makes an excellent bribe.

tbh getting water in mine when there's a build-up already there is usually when they start to get bad: i've started wearing ear plugs when i wash my hair (i think this just postpones the problem but for a while at least it means i'm not going around for three days after the hairwash unable to hear anything)

lol also i just turned the TV on for the first since the syringing and it is absolutely BOOMING so apologies to my downstairs neighbour this whole week i kind of knew i had it on max volume (bcz i can see where the bar is) but it just didn't SOUND loud

Maybe for USAers only: I just let the plugged ear marinade with Debrox overnight then use the little blue bulb in the shower with warm water the next morning. After five minutes or so of flushing the ear the chunks should come out but it takes patience.

Glad I’m also not the only one that kind of wants to admire what comes out.

Suffolk man makes candle from his ear wax

see, my ear canals must be twisty narrow lil’ bastidges because once liquid gets in there it won’t leave without a fight. hence my usual protocol: 1 ear gets debroxed 2x daily for nigh on a week (until it clears out or i sullenly concede) and hearing duties devolve entirely upon the backup ear. then once first ear regains functionality it’s the backup ear’s turn.

v. excited to try out the Boring, Maryland method & will report back when my ear disgorges a brain-sized blob of goo!

I've never let it sit overnight. I might try that, since I am always convinced I'm not getting anywhere near all of the wax out (as my occasional visits to the clinic when I can't hear have confirmed).

in case anyone was wondering who got the best xmas presents this year it was me, i did, santa loves me best, sorry to all you itchy-eared also-rans

for my year of ceaseless rectitude i have been gifted a sleek set of stainless steel ear picks/scoops/tiny rounded springy things AND a state-of-the-art $3 lighted otoscope that plugs into either my phone or computer for to see that which mine eyes were never meant to see, viz. wax deposits dating back several presidents

i'll give you all a moment to come to terms with the envy that is no doubt devouring you alive

moment over, back to gloating: this is unequivocally the best cheap garbage i ever bought for myself got for any holiday ever!!! i now understand why dogs do that thing with their leg when you skritch their ears, and why my kitties would so often maneuver their heads around so as to jam my finger up in their ear holes when i was just trying to rub their poochy little chins and cheeks. this is a transcendent sensation. i cannot believe how much of my life i have wasted not scraping my ear canals. it feels delicious. i never want this feeling to end. i want to hire a crew of tiny people to climb in there and just go to town with the teensiest little scrub brushes and i want them to live there forever. all the A+ to these miraculous products, all the gold stars, all the hosannas and hullabaloo! i hereby dedicate myself to the furtherance of their glorification until the end of my days or until i puncture an ear drum.

this is the end goal pretty much

https://thememescraps.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/hot-shots-brain-floss.gif

by the way in my trawling for this gif i discovered the existence of ear floss and wish i hadn't

just got the microsuction and i feel like i'm on e

I saw an ENT doctor last year and he suctioned out my left ear, it seemed to take close to 5 minutes and was incredibly painful, do not recommend

oh no! Mine was not painful at all.. even though it did vaguely feel like giving birth to a small alien. The aural sensation is extremely unpleasant

but there's a catharsis when it's over, at least in my case.. I actually cried lol

I'm getting mine done every three or four months (for some reason) and my experience is definitely much closer to Moodles'.

I have a bum ear so I get the suction often and I love it. It always feels amazing to me.

I should do this. I usually have blocked ears for about 3 months a year until it naturally clears. Once I got my ears syringed at the surgery and it was incredibly painful

I did the home wax cleaning thing a couple years back (with the bubbly peroxide solution and the rubber bulb to rinse it out) and a few days later I got a gnarly case of vertigo... I thought I'd had a stroke for a minute until I did a little research

Anyway, I'm just gonna let that stuff drop out when it's ready

narrator voice: it will never be ready

what if the wax is all that's holding my brain in?

only one to find out!

narrator: there were other ways to find out

nothing more satisfying than when a big waxy pachinko ball decides to drop down the chute on its own accord

Is this ear wax vacuuming maybe just a UK thing? Doesn't seem to be as much a thing in the USofA

I see a lot of banner ads that are all "If you have tinnitus, do this easy thing at home" and it's fucking annoying because I know it's all bullshit