Doctors: If You're Concerned About Earwax, Put The Q-Tip Down

If you want to avoid a visit to the doctor’s for a clogged up ear, you might want to take advice from scientists on Q-tips: stop using them to clean your ears.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation published Tuesday new guidelines in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, in which Scientists say you should put down the q-tip and leave ear wax where it belongs--in your ear.

Inserting q-tips in your ear can lead to earwax impaction, which means you could end up getting it manually removed by a doctor.

What Earwax Does

Earwax, also called cerumen, is normal material that the human body produces to clean, protect, and ‘oil’ ears from dirt, dust, and other small matters that stick to the earwax which keeps them from getting further into the ear, the report says. Everyday motions like chewing, jaw movements and growing skin in the ear canal help continuously move old earwax from inside the ears to the ear opening, where it flakes off or washes off when taking a shower.

If the self-cleaning process is disrupted, earwax could build up in your ear, block the ear canal and make it hard to hear.

Earwax Does Not Mean You're Not Clean

“There is an inclination for people to want to clean their ears because they believe earwax is an indication of uncleanliness,” said Dr. Seth R. Schwartz, chair of the guideline update group. “This misinformation leads to unsafe ear health habits.”

About 1 in 10 children, 1 in 20 adults, and more than one-third of older and developmentally-delayed groups suffer from excessive or impacted earwax, the report says.

“Patients often think that they are preventing earwax from building up by cleaning out their ears with cotton swabs, paper clips, ear candles, or any number of unimaginable things that people put in their ears,” Schwartz said. “The problem is that this effort to eliminate earwax is only creating further issues because the earwax is just getting pushed down and impacted further into the ear canal.”

Schwartz says that anything that fits in the ear may “cause serious harm to the eardrum and canal with the potential for temporary or even permanent damage.” Symptoms from impacted earwax include ear pain, itching, feeling of fullness in the ear, ringing in the ear (tinnitus), hearing loss, discharge coming from the ear, odor coming from the ear, cough, and/or change in hearing aid function, the report says.

Here are tips from the recent report :

• DON’T overclean your ears. Excessive cleaning may irritate the ear canal, cause infection, and even increase the changes of cerumen impaction.

• DON’T put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear. Your mother was right! Cotton swabs, hair pins, care keys, toothpicks…these can all injure your ear and may cause a laceration (cut) in the ear canal, a perforation (hole) in the eardrum, and/or dislocation of the hearing bones, leading to hearing loss, dizziness, ringing, and other symptoms of ear injury.

• DON’T use ear candles. There is no evidence that they remove impacted cerumen, and candling can cause serious damage to the ear canal and eardrum.

• DO seek medical evaluation if you have symptoms of hearing loss, ear fullness, and ear pain if you are not certain that they are from cerumen.

• DO ask your provider about ways that you can treat your cerumen impaction at home. You may have certain medical or ear conditions that may make some options unsafe.

• DO seek medical attention with ear pain, drainage, or bleeding. These are not symptoms of cerumen impaction and need further evaluation.