Ear wax removal is not a pleasant prospect.
When this unfortunate situation presented itself to me, I had to figure out how to deal with it. In the end, as the title gives away, I got rid of some bothersome earwax last September without ever going to the doctor.
In case you were wondering: well, I hadn’t gone to the ear doctor, so how did I even know I had an ear wax situation?
Well, after putting up with ongoing ear discomfort, I decided to buy an endoscope to take a look inside my ears. After all, what’s more convenient – a nerve-wrecking visit to the doctor or your own personal endoscope you can use to stare curiously at your tympanic membrane whenever you want? Well, definitely option B for me.
I managed to purchase my own endoscope for less than $8 on Aliexpress. In comparison, the cost of visiting an ear, nose, and throat specialist (also known as “otolaryngologist”) is about $150. The time it took to ship my endoscope from China was about two weeks (if I remember right), which may have been as long as it would taken to get a doctor’s appointment.
Actually, just looked this up, and yes, 2 weeks – or more precisely, 13.2 days – is how long it takes an appointment with an ear doctor in the USA.
So, your question at this point might be: what do I have against ear doctors? Well, it’s nothing personal, and I did actively considering going to one for some time. I even wanted to try microsuction ear wax removal at a doctor’s office. Something that put me off was learning that the microsuction procedure can get as loud as 120 decibels – inside your ear canal! After all, it is literally like having a mini vacuum cleaner in your ears.
It appears that ear doctors tend to use a saline or dilute peroxide solution to clean the inner ears. This seemed like something that can be done at home on a budget, using hydrogen peroxide drops. I did try this. The sensation of the hydrogen peroxide foaming in my ear was unpleasant, and the whole experience was very uncomfortable, even painful. It was my discomfort that prompted me into doing some more research. It appears that if you have a tear you are not aware of in your ear drum and the hydrogen peroxide gets inside, it can cause permanent damage to the middle ear. My endoscope had revealed that my ear drum was completely covered with wax, so there was no way I could determine if there was any such tear. Also, it appears that hydrogen peroxide can cause pain by irritating the skin, leading to inflammation. At any rate, I did not want to continue on this route after learning that.
At some point, I tried removing the earwax using the clip-on little wax pick for the endoscope, but I gave up pretty soon. It was just too uncomfortable, the picture wasn’t clear enough, and the wax was too far down for me to use the pick on the shortest setting. I was leery of using it on the long setting. After all, who wants to accidentally jab an eardrum?
Next, I looked into using olive oil drops. I believe that is how I came across the following video:
This is how I learned that apparently ear wax is water soluble!
The video suggested using steam distilled water. I got my hands on a gallon of this. Equipping myself with paper towels and an eye dropper, I decided to put this to the test. I used a small jar to warm some of the water in the microwave – not too much, just enough to make it comfortable to the skin. Then, I bent to one side in front of a mirror and carefully dispensed the warmed water into my affected ear (right ear) using the pipette. Then, I lay down on my opposite side on my bed and waited a few minutes. When I felt I had waited long enough, I applied the folded paper towel to my ear and flipped over quickly to drain it. There was just a small bit of wax, but enough to inspire me to keep going. I repeated the whole procedure, and to my disappointment, saw nothing on the napkin.
My disappointment faded when I looked into my ear with the endoscope and saw my clean eardrum – praise God!
Unfortunately, not having expected such rapid results, I had failed to failed to take before/after pictures. I wanted to get pictures, so I repeated the experiment on my left ear, which had some earwax built up on the side of the ear canal.
My left ear was experiencing some discomfort when I was lying down with the water inside the canal, and it was temporarily muffled after three goes. The eardrum seems to be intact though (thank God), so I’m not sure what was the reason for the uncomfortable water-logged feeling I got. Interestingly, despite multiple flushes, I only succeeded in removing a dark layer of ear wax to reveal a lighter, yellow layer below. The wax didn’t just suddenly all dissolve like before.
I suspect a reason it didn’t work so well this time is that the wax in my left ear was much farther away from the eardrum and closer to the ear opening than it had been in the right ear. Perhaps the wax hadn’t been completely submerged in the water each and every time I put the water in? It’s hard to say.
And yes, I did take pictures. They didn’t come out too nice. The humidity in the ear canal had fogged up the lens of the little camera.
Do you want to try this method out yourself? Here are the basic supplies you’d need; an endoscope, though fun, is optional. Let me know how it goes!
