Q-tips are not audiologist favorite tools and there’s a couple of reasons. If used properly, Q-tips really should only be utilize on the outside of the ear. That means just the parts you can see. The flap of skin called the pinna on the outside. You can use the q-tip in that area of just on the inside of the ear canal where the eye could see. Any deeper than that, where we can’t see, we don’t know what’s down there unless an audiologist or a doctor has examined your ear. So if you have wax, if you have a foreign body in the ear, if you have an ear infection, you could really damage your ear canal and ear drum by going in with a q-tip because you may push something deeper into the ear canal and further damage what may not have needed to be damage if the q-tip wasn’t used.
The other reason q-tips aren’t such a great idea is because they are cotton tipped or cotton swabbed. And the cotton can stick or you know be removed, filaments that can stay in the ear canal. And if wax and debris grows around that, it just creates more debris in the ear that need not be there.
A certain amount of earwax is a good thing. Our ears are designed to be lubricated and to have secretions. That is a part of the way our body works. Some people develop wax that are very slow rate. Other people develop it very quickly. And so if you think you're somebody who develops it quickly, your doctor can examine your ears or your audiologist and let you know if it's to the extent where wax removal techniques need to be utilized. Most people don’t need to use wax removal techniques including q-tips. Q-tips usually don’t need to be use. If wax does develop to the point of blocking the ear, there are techniques that a doctor would use either water irrigation, suction, or curettage which is a little scoop that a doctor would use to remove the wax. And we usually don’t recommend that people try that themselves.
There are few products that are on the market and I actually recommend the use of that for some of my patients who tend to build wax up more readily. And I wouldn’t use it without consulting with a pharmacist and audiologist, or a doctor. It is over-the-counter. You can purchase it usually in the section of the pharmacy where eyedrops and eye medications are sold. But use them with caution because if you do have a lot of wax, you may not know what’s behind the wax. And that’s always the fear we have when people self-treat with wax removal techniques that they don’t know what’s behind the wax. They may have an ear infection and have a hole in their ear drum. So, if they put drops in there and there is a hole in the ear drum, the drops can seep into the middle ear and cause more problems than needed to have happen.
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