Your grandmother is in excellent company: the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS), your hearing care professional and even that box of swabs you’re holding agree: you should never clean your ears out with anything smaller than your elbow. Here’s 5 reasons why:
1. Ear Cleaning is Painfully Redundant
That’s because your ears already clean themselves—nature designed them that way. Cerumen (the technical name for ear wax) is actually your ears’ very own cleaning solution. It traps dirt and debris before it can go deeper inside your ear canal. But it doesn’t stop there: The daily activities of just talking, chewing and yawning activities physically move the ear wax out of your ear canal so all you have to do is wipe the excess away during a shower. There, finished!
Using a pencil, swab, key, chopstick, fork, finger or any other pointy object for ear wax removal actually frustrates and reverses your ears’ self-cleaning process, pushing used ear wax deeper into the canal where it can get impacted and lead to injury and hearing loss.
2. Ear Wax is Good Stuff
Although nobody ever wants to run across an ear wax flavored Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor jellybean, cerumen (medical-speak for ear wax) has so many health properties that clean, protect and condition your ears. Aside from its dirt-trapping properties, it protects your ears against viruses, fungal infections, bacteria, and even bugs! It also moisturizes and conditions the skin inside of the ear canal, keeping it healthy and supple.
Cerumen is a fascinating recipe of long-chain fatty acids, cholesterol, alcohols, sebum, sloughed off skin cells, enzymes and other chemicals that are produced by special glands inside your ears. Your ears concoct this special recipe to keep your ears clean and infection free. In fact, average cerumen is slightly acidic—which inhibits fungal and bacterial growth. Yay ear wax!
3. Too Much Ear Cleaning = Hearing Loss
When you swab, jab or dig around for ear wax removal, you inadvertently push soiled ear wax further down into your ear canal where it’s harder to remove and can cause some level of hearing loss. It may even become impacted and have to be removed professionally. If you’ve been doing this for years, schedule an appointment with your hearing care professional.
To be thorough: there are people who do actually need extra help with ear cleaning. Some people’s ears make too much ear wax, or too little. Sometimes it’s too wet or too dry. Sometimes the chemical composition doesn’t quite protect the ears like it should. A lot of these issues are genetic, but also can be associated with other medical issues. Still, even in these cases, you should never use swabs or pointy objects to clean out your ears. Schedule an appointment with your hearing care professional for an appropriate diagnosis and in-office ear wax removal if necessary.
Now, if you need to wear hearing aids, you do need to pay attention to ear wax buildup and proper ear cleaning because sometimes that can impact ear wax into the ear canal. But still—no swabs! That’s why it’s so important to follow your hearing care professional’s recommendations on gentle ear washing and regular cleaning of your hearing aids to keep the balance right and your hearing healthy.
4. And Other Ear Cleaning Injuries
And here’s a sad statistic: 12,500 kids a year end up at the doctor’s office for ear cleaning related ear injuries. It’s particularly sad because it’s so unnecessary. Parents often teach their kids to use swabs to clean out their ears, having learned from their parents that it was the hygienic thing to do. Then kids try to do it and inadvertently injure their ears with lacerations, cuts and tympanic membrane tears. Focus, instead, on teaching children to brush their teeth—their ears can take care of themselves for the most part.
One more thing about poor ear cleaning habits: Do not try ear candling. It may be touted at your local health food store as a “natural” way to clean ears, but there is absolutely no science to back this up, and it’s also dangerous to stick anything on fire near your face or into your ear. Here’s what you should know about ear candling:
- It’s been proven ineffective for ear cleaning and can actually make ear wax impaction worse.
- It causes burn injuries to the face, ears, hair, etc. – even burns that go all the way to the ear drum and middle ear.
- It’s also been known to puncture the ear drum.
It’s also been known to puncture the ear drum.
So no ear candling for you!
5. Still Want to Clean Your Ears?
All you really need to do is gently dab your ears dry with a towel after your daily shower and hair washing routine. Normally, this is entirely sufficient for healthy ear cleaning. But if you have any concerns about your ear health, excess ear wax, impaction, ear injury or hearing loss, schedule an appointment with your hearing care professional today for appropriate care – and be a little more thankful for that hard-working cerumen!