Ears may get neglected when it comes to poetry —they’re not the window of the soul, and nobody compares them to a summer’s day — but we shouldn’t forget that, for all their funny-looking glory, ears and their health are extremely important. And there’s a bunch of misinformation out there about how to care for them properly and preserve your hearing, ear health and proper wax levels. Odds are, most of what you’ve heard about how to clean your ears, how to prevent hearing loss, or whether it’s OK to pierce your own ears is probably wrong.
Ears are rather like a well-functioning metro systems; you only really notice them when you start to experience serious difficulties with them. That, however, is no excuse to neglect proper ear care — especially because you don’t want to have to deal with the products of poor ear care, like ear syringing, hearing loss or explaining to your doctor why you tried to pierce your ears at home and now have a streaming ear infection. (I can guarantee that their expression will be, at best, exasperated.)
So here are five things to never, ever do to your ears. Friends don’t let friends go to concerts without earplugs or run around with their headphones turned up so loud that their music can be heard from space.
1. Insert Cotton Swabs.
You may look at your packet of cotton swabs and believe they’re tailor-made to be pushed into your ear canal and wiggled about in order to remove earwax. Well, I’m sorry to inform you that you’re wrong; not only are you wrong about what you should be putting into your ear canal, but you have the exact wrong attitude regarding earwax. Earwax is not your enemy; rather, earwax is needed to help your ears properly function, and clearing it out aggressively is a habit that can go very wrong.
Cotton swab insertions can cause several potential problems for the interior of the ear canal. They may remove wax and cause irritation and itching, and they may damage hearing by pushing wax further back into the ear instead of “cleaning it”. This kind of impacted wax can seriously hurt hearing and balance, and sometimes, if it gets impacted enough, it needs to be removed by your doctor in a process called “ear syringing” or “irrigation.” And, as somebody who’s experienced it, I’d advise against putting it on your bucket list. Think having a high-powered water cannon focussed exclusively on your ear canal, and you’ll get the gist of it.
And if all that’s not enough for you, there have been instances where a person inserting a swab into their ear canal has actually perforated the eardrum. Yeesh. Nope.
If you have a wax build-up problem, consult your doctor and follow their advice. Many people with impacted ear wax are recommended to use special oils to loosen up their wax, but you’ll have to check with your GP about what they think will work in your specific case.
2. Crank Up The Volume On Your Headphones
open next page to continue reading….
