What You Need to Know About Earwax Accumulation

When you shower, always remember to wash your ears. It’s hard not to say that in your “parenting” voice. Maybe when you were a kid you even remember your parents telling you to do it. That’s the type of memory that can take you back to simpler times as you wrap yourself in the nostalgia of childhood.

But it’s also good advice. Your hearing can be significantly impacted by an overabundance of earwax. Still worse, this organic substance can harden in place making it difficult to clean out. Bottom line, you’ll be best off keeping those ears clean.

Excessive earwax? Eww!

Earwax is, well, kind of gross. That’s an opinion that most people share. But it is actually essential for the health of your ears. Earwax is manufactured by glands inside of your ears and is then pushed out when you chew in order to keep your ears free of dust and dirt.

So your ears will stay clean and healthy when they produce the ideal amount of earwax. However counterintuitive it seems, the reality is that earwax itself is not a sign of bad hygiene.

The troubles begin when your ears generate too much earwax. And it can be fairly challenging to know if the amount of earwax being produced is healthy or too much.

What is the consequence of excess earwax?

So, what happens as a result of accumulated earwax? There are several issues that may develop due to out-of-control earwax or earwax that accumulates over time. Those issues include:

• Infection: Infections can be the outcome of excessive earwax. If fluid builds up, it can get trapped behind impacted earwax.
• Earache: An earache is one of the most prevalent symptoms of excess earwax. It doesn’t have to hurt too much (though, sometimes it can). This normally occurs when earwax is creating pressure in places where it shouldn’t be.
• Tinnitus: Tinnitus is a condition where you hear a phantom buzzing or ringing in your ears. Tinnitus symptoms can show up or get worse when earwax is built up inside your ear.
• Dizziness: Your inner ear is vital to your balance. So when accumulated ear wax causes your inner ear to have issues, your balance can be affected, causing you to feel dizzy.

This list is just the beginning. Neglected earwax can cause painful headaches. If you use hearing aids, excess earwax can interfere with them. This means that you may think your hearing aids are having problems when the real problem is a little bit too much earwax.

Can earwax affect your hearing?

The quick answer is yes. One of the most common problems connected with excess earwax is hearing loss. Usually producing a form of conductive hearing loss, earwax builds up in the ear canal, preventing sound waves and vibrations from getting in. The issue normally goes away when the earwax is removed, and usually, your hearing will return to normal.

But if the accumulation becomes extreme, permanent damage can appear. The same is true of earwax-caused tinnitus. It’s usually temporary. But the longer the excess earwax hangs around (that is, the longer you neglect the symptoms), the greater the risk of long-term damage.

Prevention, treatment, or both?

It’s a good plan to keep track of your earwax if you want to protect your hearing. It’s incorrect cleaning, not excess production that leads to buildup in most instances (a cotton swab, for example, will frequently compact the earwax in your ear rather than getting rid of it, eventually causing a blockage).

It will usually require professional removal of the wax that has become solidified to the point that you can’t get rid of it. You’ll be able to start hearing again as soon as you get that treatment and then you can start over, cleaning your ears the right way.