What Causes Excessive Ear Wax
Earwax is a substance produced by your ear canal to help capture incoming dust particles and safely transport them to the outer ear. Usually, the system works perfectly. Your ears produce just the right quantity of this sticky substance, collecting any incoming invaders and then allowing them to flake off harmlessly.
However, sometimes, ear wax can build up too much. When this happens, it makes you feel as if you are living with your “head in a barrel.” Everything sounds dull and muted, and the quality of your hearing starts to decline.
Impacted earwax can lead to quite profound hearing loss. For instance, you may not be able to hear birdsong or the sound of children’s voices.
There are several methods for removing impacted ear wax. Most people can resolve the issue with over the counter medications. These are usually liquids that you use to dissolve excessive wax and flush out the ear.
In some cases, these aren’t effective. Patients, therefore, will often go to audiologists and other hearing professionals to learn more about how they can deal with the problem. Mostly, they are able to resolve it quickly using special tools to pull out the excess earwax without causing any damage to the ear itself.
The symptoms of excessive ear wax can be distressing. You may feel pain, a decreased ability to hear, and ringing in the ears. If there’s an infection, the ears may also exude pus. In extreme cases, people have fever and require hospital treatment.
This leaves many people wondering, what actually causes excessive ear wax buildup? That’s the subject of this post.
Using Cotton Swabs To Remove Excess Wax
For many decades, people have been using cotton swabs to remove excess ear wax from their ears. However, there is now ample evidence that this approach makes the problem worse, not better. Cotton swabs have an annoying habit of actually pushing ear wax deeper into the ear. This then makes it more likely that it will become impacted. Swabs don’t remove much wax from the ear at all.
Using Hearing Aids Or Ear Plugs
Hearing aids and ear plugs put pressure on the interior of the ear canal. This then encourages it to increase production of wax to remove the debris. Unfortunately, it can overshoot and produce too much, leaving your ears feeling bunged up.
Conclusion
If you think that you have an earwax blockage, you can ask your local health professional to make a diagnosis for you. Usually, this involves peering into your ear with an otoscope, a device that they use to take a look inside the ear canal.
They may then offer treatment. Either they will offer to scoop it out using special tools, or they’ll use a liquid solution for the same effect.
You can attempt to remove impacted ear wax yourself at home. However, if the impaction is serious, you may struggle to make any progress. Do not use ear candling as it does not work and may actually damage your eardrum and ear canal lining.
