Excess earwax can cause a host of hearing issues including dizziness, soreness, hearing loss, and more. Removing earwax can be done safely at home; keep reading to learn more.

Earwax is Essential to Healthy Ears

Earwax gets a bad rap for being dirty or a bother, but it is very important to the health of your ears. Earwax is produced by glands in the ear canal in order to protect sensitive structures deeper inside of the ear. Earwax nourishes and hydrates the skin inside of your ear and prevents harmful substances, like dirt, bacteria, and germs, from entering your eardrum.  

Earwax isn’t really wax at all! It does have a waxy consistency, but it is mostly made up of sebum which is a combination of dead skin cells and hair combined with other substances like keratin, cholesterol, long chain fatty acids, squalene, wax chemical compounds, and alcohol chemical compounds.  

It is possible to produce excess earwax. This usually occurs in people who wear hearing aids, or those who must wear earplugs of some sort for their occupation. Allergies, cold weather, and some skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis can also cause an over production of earwax. Ironically, a lot of tools and procedures used to remove earwax actually cause it to build up more!

Removing Earwax… What Not To Do

As stated, earwax is actually good for, and needed by, your ears. If you’re not experiencing discomfort or hearing loss issues, you should leave the wax in your ears alone. However, if you feel that your earwax is excessive and causing problems, your instinct will be to remove it.  

The number one thing you should never do to remove earwax is stick something in your ear to remove it. A cotton swab will only push earwax further into your ear canal making the wax build up and cause a more severe issue down the road.  

Using cotton swabs to remove earwax can:

• Disrupt the tiny hairs that protect your ear canal  
• Push wax deeper into your ear canal 
• Traumatize the fragile ear canal skin and lead to infection or bleeding 

No object, even your finger, should be stuck into your ear to remove wax! However, do not despair, there are safe and effective ways to remove earwax!  

Safely Removing Earwax at Home

Although your ears are like self-cleaning ovens, when the outer layer of skin sheds, excess earwax should go with it, there are times when cleaning your ear canal is necessary.  

The first step to safely removing earwax on your own is to visit a hearing care professional, like an audiologist. A hearing professional can teach you how to remove excess earwax as well as provide or prescribe the correct softening drops or ear irrigation kits for use at home. Visiting your primary care provider can also be beneficial as earwax removal is one of the most popular procedures performed by doctors in the U.S. 

Once you’ve visited an audiologist or hearing care professional to ensure there are no holes in your eardrum or other possible health issues with your ears, an over-the-counter (OTC) earwax removal kit may be suggested.  

Over-the-Counter Cleaning Kit

These OTC kits are easy to use and generally entail you putting some drops in your ears, laying sideways with the ear you are cleaning facing up, and waiting for the drops to work. After 5 minutes or so, you should be able to sit up and wipe the liquid, along with the earwax it dislodged, from your ear. If this doesn’t work, there is one more home removal option available.  

Bulb Syringe Removal

A bulb syringe can be obtained from your audiologist, or from your local pharmacy. This option offers a little more pressure on the earwax than just the loosening drops. There are a few things to remember when using a bulb syringe to remove earwax, this includes:  

Being gentle: Flush your ear gently to avoid damaging your eardrum.

Pay attention to water temperature: The water you use to flush your ear should not be too hot or too cold, if it is, severe dizziness may occur. The water you use should be body temperature.  

Using the bulb syringe is easy. Fill the syringe with body temperature water, place it near the opening of your ear, and gently squeeze the bulb. The warm water will flood your ear and should break up the wax that is stuck. Just turn your head over a sink or tub to let the water and wax out.  

Removing earwax safely on your own is a healthy option, however the process begins with visiting an audiologist or hearing care professional. Using drops or a bulb syringe on an eardrum that is damaged will only cause more damage. Having your ears checked by a professional first should always be the first step in removing earwax on your own. The team at Hearing Solution Centers can ensure that your ears are healthy, that it is safe to remove wax using the methods above, and can even teach you how to clean your ears safely.  

When Earwax removal at Home Doesn’t Work

Sometimes at-home earwax removal kits and bulb syringes just don’t solve the problem. A build up of earwax may be so severe that the wax becomes stuck in your ear canal. Symptoms of this type of build up may include: muffled hearing, ear pain, dizziness, ear fullness, or a ringing in the ears (tinnitus). If you experience any of these symptoms, a visit to an audiologist is a must.  

An audiologist, like the ones at Hearing Solution Centers, can access your ear health and safely remove the wax that is stuck. Using an Earigator system that circulates warm water through the ear canal is a gentle yet effective way to loosen the wax. An audiologist can also make sure that something more severe is not responsible for your symptoms.  

Dealing with excess earwax? Reach out to the team at Hearing Solution Centers for assistance in cleaning your ears!