Since then I've learned that not only is it okay to have earwax, but it's important as it functions as a filter for your ears, keeping dangerous things-like spiders-out.
And I have permanent damage to my ear drum from it.
I can't even tell you what it feels like to have a thousand little spiders on your ear drum. We watched the spider twitch around slowly dying, but as it began to curl up, it revealed a small egg sac on its back. I watched the monitor, as he inserted the needle into its head, and squeezed the serum in. I started to panic but the doctor told me he could give the spider an injection to kill it. There was a live wolf spider staring back at the camera, its little eyes unblinking the entire time. When I saw the screen, I felt like a cold dagger stabbed my gut. I went to the closest ER and they stuck a tiny camera down my ear canal. "I tried to scrape it out but felt something pierce my ear canal and screamed. It felt like something was stuck in there. Then one night I woke up because I felt some sort of itch in my ear, something that was more irritating than usual. Even though I knew I shouldn't stick things in them, I was always worried that my ears weren't clean enough and would use a bobby pin or Q-tip or whatever to constantly get the wax out. "I've always been OCD about cleaning out my ears. Ear-wax removal just feels so good! Yet no one wants to go deaf via wax so if doctors haven't convinced you to quit your Q-tip habit yet, perhaps these horror stories will. Digging around in your ear with a cotton swab is, well, eargasmic. There's a reason why so many people still do it even though we all know better. (Kick-start your new, healthy routine with Women's Health's 12-Week Total-Body Transformation!)īut, let's be honest: You knew that already. Not only that but every time you stick something into your ear canal-be it a cotton swab, a bobby pin, a pen cap or any of the other popular "ear cleaning" hacks-you risk puncturing your ear drum, he says, adding that punctured ear drums are excruciatingly painful and can lead to infections and even deafness. Instead of cleaning out ear wax, it's just pushing most of the wax further down into your ear where it can build up, create an infection, and even temporarily decrease your hearing, he explains. First, it doesn't work the way you think it does. "People should absolutely not stick Q-tips inside their ears," says Arnold Henry, M.D., and ear, nose, and throat doc at Indiana University Health. Got an ear itch? Excessive ear wax? Got a cotton swab? Problem solved, right? Wrong.
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