June 3, 2026 • 36 mins
Earwax might seem gross, but it’s actually one of your body’s built-in defense systems. This week, Hari and Dr. Priyanka dive into the sticky science of cerumen: why your ears make it, why Q-tips feel so good, and why doctors desperately want you to stop using them. From impacted wax and hearing loss to ear candling and the surprising genetics behind body odor, this episode explores the strange world living inside your ears.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is for information purposes only and should not
be considered professional medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Earwax is not dirty, it's ear security. Yeah, this gunk
is gunk.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
You don't touch. I'm hurry, Condibolu.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm doctor preuncle Wally, and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is health stuff. Hello, doctor Prianca. Hello there, non
doctor Condibolu. How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm just thinking about our topic today. But other than that,
I've been dealing with just some usual mom stuff. Yeah,
like childhood exzema. That's a fun one.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So yeah, my son has full body egzema, and so
I've I am the food source. So I have had
to go on an elimination diet to try wow figure
out what's the cause, what's the culprit, and cutting out
dear and nuts and eggs and basically all the fun stuff.
(01:05):
And so yeah, fortunately it's gotten a lot better. But
right now we're in a guessing game territory until we
figure this out.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There's no test where they can test you and the
baby and figure out what is going on.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
We're going to get a test.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I was a little hesitant because he's so young and
doing blood draws and stuff. I think We're definitely gonna
head in that direction. But yeah, that was my weekend.
My weekend was basically figuring out the menu for myself.
So I'm basically on like a meat and veg diet
at this point.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Right now, I just thought about what you said about
drawing blood from a baby. I can't even imagine that process.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
When they're teeny teeny, they get it from their foot, right,
and they just take drops from their foot. I swear
I am already saving money for my children's ayahuasca fun
down the line, the therapy fund. Trust me, I'm saving
now for that.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
This is one of the joys of parenthood is you
think of about the trauma you might have created for
your child later, and you hope to God that it
isn't what happened, and then you probably get hit with
something else, Oh that that's what caused the trauma.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I swear it literally keeps me up at night.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I worry about some of the decisions that I've made
and if I'm going to be responsible for the ayahuasca
retreat in thirty.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Years from now.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But the thing I've learned becoming a parent is you
have to have lots of compassion and for yourself and
your child, and you're not going to do it perfectly.
It's going to get messed up. And you're doing the
best that you can, you know what I mean. And
that's all we can.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Do until the kid starts blaming you, and then that's
not enough of an answer.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I know, I am ready for the blame.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
My personality is I tend to blame myself anyway in
those situations in an argument, I'll be the one to
be like, no, this is my faulty, and so I'm
already prepared for that.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
You know what I mean. Just give me the list
of grievances.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We're going to talk today about a very weird, but icky,
but very pertinent subject today.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yes, earwax. I think about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Okay, so I have to ask you a question. Did
you have a lot of ear rex build up when
you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Not that I can.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I can remember because I always loved taking the Q
tip and putting it in my ear and getting all
the wax up.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Because when you clean your body, you rarely.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Get the satisfaction of really feeling like, oh, I'm look
at all the dirt that came off my body.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You don't get to see the filth that you've removed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
But with earwax, it feels like, look at me, I
just took something filthy out of my body. I'm cleaner
now because I stuck this thing in my which, by
the way, it is not something they recommend you do
sticking a Q tip in your ear. I always assumed
that was one of the purposes of a Q tip,
considering it's an object that fits an ear sized hole
(03:54):
perfectly right, like the hole is just it's like the
perfect thing to fit in there. But apparently it's not
supposed to be used for that. But I always felt
good cleaning my ears and feeling like, look at all
this gunk that I get out of there. But apparently
that gunk is very important.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
The gunk is not only important.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And we're going to talk exactly about why Q tips
are not the right thing to do with your ears.
Growing up, I had a tremendous amount of earwax build up.
I have these memories throughout childhood of needing to do
ear irrigations on my ears.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So basically, they would take a syringe and squirt water
into my ear to push all the extra wax out
that would come out, and I very clearly recall because
my dad is a physician, so he would bring the
syringe just home, so we would like do this at home,
and we had to do this. I must have been
(04:55):
once a quarter where they had to take earwax out
of my ear. And there's this thing that happens, like
when your ears get full of earwax. And there's lots
of reasons why earx develops, and we'll talk about that,
but when you get a lot of earwax in your
ear and then you actually remove it with a syringe
and flush it all out through an ear irrigation, one
(05:19):
thing that happens is all of a sudden, you're hearing
gets super good all of a sudden, like you can
hear just every single noise, and it would always be
this likesh sound it would come out of my ear.
And then suddenly I had basically like echo location statuses
like it was. It was so wild, and I just
(05:42):
had a lot of earx build up.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
But how did you know you had earwax build up?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Because then my dad would look in my ear and
be like, WHOA, I can't see anything that's completely blocked
there's just so much ear wax.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I can't even see your ear drum.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Is it possible that people have earwax build up and
they don't know, Like, how would they know?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's very possible that they don't know. Maybe they're hard
of hearing. If you have severe iarwax build xs, sometimes
it can even cause dizziness. It can affect your inner
ear if there's that much pressure. But yeah, if you're
hard of hearing, and maybe you might find yourself itching
your ear, or worst case scenario, you have chunks of
earwacks falling out of your ear, which at one point,
(06:24):
like did happen to be as a kid, there was
so much earwax, then that would be a sign that, hey,
maybe you need to get your ears looked at and
cleaned out. This topic is very near and dear to
my heart because it goes way back back to childhood.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's near and dear to your ear, it's near and
dear to my ear.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yes, so let me lend let's lend an ear to
this next section. Oh no, that was terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Again, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your your wax earwax.
So I guess my first question is what does it do.
And also this is not a question that's particularly useful,
but why is it yellow?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
The yellow color depends on whether it's a wet type
of ear wax or a dry type. So the wet
type is that more yellow, honey colored, it's generally sticky,
and then the dry type it can be grayer, maybe tan,
it's more flaky. Sometimes if it's super dark like black,
(07:29):
that actually means the wax has not only dried out,
but probably been compacted on top of each other. And
the type of wax, believe it or not, it's determined
by a gene. They've actually been able to isolate the
gene that determines the ear wax type, and it's called
(07:51):
the ABCC eleven gene. This same gene, there's sort of
racial differentferences between the gene and how it presents in
different populations. East Asian populations they tend to have more
dry earwax, so like the flaky, gray colored one, whereas
(08:13):
European and African populations they tend to have more of
the wet earwax. And fun fact, this ABCC eleven gene
not only does it determine what kind of earwax you have,
but it also determines whether or not you have underarm odor.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Really, so not everybody has underarm odor, is what you're saying,
yea is not everybody has the gene for it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Correct, Correct?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You go back to the East Asian populations, more commonly.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
The dry earwax and also little to no body order.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah so yeah, so what does earwax do? Like, how
does it help your body?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So it's really actually a very critical tool that our
body uses to trap dust, germs, and debris before it
reaches the ear drum. And ear wax is made of
secretions from your body, but also the skin cells from
(09:13):
your deadskin and your hair and just debris like dust
and all that stuff. It's not when we call it
ear wax. It's not actually wax, which would indicate it's
like a pure kind of thing. It's actually made of
lots of different properties. In fact, it even has antibacterial properties.
And the medical term for ear wax is serumen, which
(09:34):
is really annoying because the word men isnt it yet?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Kidding, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It repels water to protect the ear canal and ear drum.
It has anti bacterial properties, and it moisturizes the ear
canal to prevent dry, itchy ears. So that's that's valuable,
very valuable. In fact, the name serumon it's Latin Latin words.
Sira is Latin for wax, and they called it seramon
(10:01):
in the seventeen hundreds because it has a waxy sort
of feel to it, so literally translated earwax. I think
it's important and this is something I'm going to repeat
to myself. Earwax is not dirty, it's ear security.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
If you have ear wax, it doesn't mean you have
bad hygiene. It means actually your ears are functioning normally.
And that I think that's really important to normalize because
as a kid growing up with lots of earwax, I'm
so fortunate that I had parents that normalized earwax. They
never there was never any shame about it because they knew,
(10:40):
oh no, this is a sign that the ears are
like really functioning properly.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And if you completely remove all your.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Earwax, then what your body does is it will sort
of respond by just making more.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
More after this break. Wait, So I shouldn't be cleaning
my ears out with Q tips.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Definitely not with Q tips definitely.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Not, Because I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I
feel like that's a lot of Americans who are doing
the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Many They've done a lot of studies actually of people,
including healthcare workers. Believe it or not, there were studies
in healthcare workers where basically they did a survey and
they found that ninety percent of the hospital staff were
cleaning their ears with things like Q tips.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
So, yeah, we definitely shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And actually there's a lot of marketing around this idea
that you need the Q tip to clean your ear,
but you don't need to fall for that. Moving your
jaw actually allows your ear canal to push wax out
on its own, So doing things like chewing and talking
(11:56):
will help actually clean your ears naturally.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
What happened when you clean your ears? Is it damaging
your ear at all? Or is it just pushing wax
in or what is? What are the negative effects of
it other than getting rid of this thing that is valuable.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, so even if you're doing something like taking a
clean Q tip and putting it in your ear to
scrape the ear wax out, you're still risking pushing and
impacting and compacting that wax in. And then that's where
you lead to issues because that can affect your hearing,
and that can eventually cause itching as well and cause
(12:35):
the wax to get really black and hard, which we
don't want. So generally, putting anything in your ears is
not something that you want to do. I once saw
an ear doctor. I remember he told me this. I
was like, one of the things that happens is when
I take a shower, my whole body gets wet and
then the moisture goes inside of the ear, and what
(12:58):
do I do about that? And so he was like,
first of all, wipe the outer ear with a washcloth,
like only the outer ear. But if you have too
much earwax built up in your ear, they do have
things like earwax softeners, like mineral oil or baby oil,
and you could put a drop in and then use
(13:18):
like a bulb syringe with lukewarm water to like take
it out, and that's you know, the bulb syringe is
really really gentle on you. I definitely remember having that
done on me as a kid. But then if you
have if more of a build up at that point
and you're not getting it out, you need to go
see an E and T to get this taken out.
(13:39):
They'll use either a syringe or a special little it's
called a cure tage, just like a teenyteny spoon, and
they'll just sort of scoop it out.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I mean, this is not something we should The syringe
thing is not something we should do on our own.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
It's not possible to do it on your own. I
mean I would not recommend doing it on your own.
I think that would be basically close to impossible because
you can't gate, you can't syringe your own ear. That
would be very difficult.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Because I think about the fact that it's not just cute.
If I'm putting in my ears, I'm putting in earbuds
or earplugs on a plane. There are things that I
do just to block sound or do you listen to
music or whatever else?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Like right, what is that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
What is something happening to the inside of my ear
into the ear wax when I do that?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I've been guilty of this
as well. I stopped using earbuds at some point for
this reason. So anytime you put something in your ear canal,
whether it's an earbud or a hearing aid or even
those foam earplugs, you are introducing outside bacteria into your
(14:45):
ear canal, So you're basically affecting the natural defenses that
are already set up in the ear canal against bacteria.
That's the first thing you're doing. The second thing that
can happen is that you're also trapping moisture, so that
moisture would naturally be expelled by the ear, especially if
you're not cleaning your earbuds, which let's be honest, like
(15:08):
who cleans their earbuds after each use or hearing It's
a lot of people use hearing its and they don't
clean it after each use.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
That is really a source of.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Infection or a source of bacteria that can go into
your ear canal. And then if you share earbuds like
that can be a very like friendly or even romantic
thing to do, but when you share earbuds, you're potentially
sharing bacteria that can then increase the risk of developing
sort of complications. And I personally, there was a point
(15:42):
where this was like pre pandemic. I was flying a lot,
flying all over and I'm really sensitive to loud noises,
and so airplane noise when you're in the airplane is
I experienced it as really loud, so I always wear
ear plugs, like the foam earplugs, and I started to
notice with all the flights that I was taking that
(16:02):
my ears were getting really itchy, and I just felt
like there was something going on. And what was going
on is I was affecting the natural kind of environment
in the ear canal by plugging it up, introducing or
trapping the moisture, and then introducing like outside bacteria, even
(16:23):
if the earplugs were brand new and clean.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So that's why there's because sometimes I feel like my
ears are itchy, and that's when I put a cute
tip in. I'm like, this will make it stop itching,
but that's actually making it worse.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Probably.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, So if you find that your ear is getting
really itchy and you're even noticing like stuff coming out
at that point, it might not be a bad idea
to go see an ent to see do you need
maybe a couple drops of a medication to break the
cycle and reset everything so that you can start afresh.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I do want to give props to us for the
show for wearing over the ear headphones instead of the
ones that go in your ear, because we're practicing good
ear hygiene.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I have shared earbuds with people before, but it has
never felt good. Yeah, it has never felt like something
I should be doing. Simple act of Okay, now there's
your ear wax and whatever gunk on this thing, and
now I'm cleaning it off and putting it in my
ear right now, my gunks on it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Like this is what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Do you think they should make like little earbud condoms
that people should.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
So it's like you're protected.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
You know, that's hilarious, especially if they're called ear condoms.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
The other thing I really don't like about the in
ear earbuds is that they can cause hearing damage. We
know that listening to music too loud can cause hearing
loss over time. But the thing about the in ear
earbuds is that they are transmitting the acoustic ear energy
(18:01):
directly into your auditory canal. And what do a lot
of people do when they have earbuds in you're at
a coffee shop or maybe you're in a loud environment.
They turn up the volume so that they can hear
above the ambient environment, so they're actually blasting even more
(18:22):
sound into their ear. In fact, the safest thing to
do if using in ear earbuds is to keep the
volume around or below fifty percent of the maximum and
to limit how long you use them. I like the
sixty sixty rule, which is no more than sixty percent
(18:43):
of the volume for no more than sixty minutes, or
even better as the fifty to fifty rule, no more
than fifty percent of the volume for fifty minutes.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
And this is where like.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Noise canceling earbuds are probably a slight step above the
regular in air earbuds because with the noise canceling it
removes the ambient noise, so you don't have to actually
increase the volume. Yeah, to hear over everything, like on
an airplane, Like on an airplane, Yeah, exactly, be really
(19:13):
careful because if you ever get tinatus or ringing in
the ears, that could be a sign that there's some
ear damage happening.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Now, the things that can increase earwax build up you
have heavy sweating, stress, excess ear hair, chronic ear infections, aging, overcleaning,
which is guilty right here, genetics, and some people just
produce more ear wax than others.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And when there's too much wax build up in the ear,
it's actually called impaction, that's the medical term, and that
can affect your hearing. So, like, what could be some
signs of impacted earwax If all of a sudden your
hearing's a bit muffled, severe impaction, You can actually feel
fullness in your ear or ear pressure. Sometimes it can
(20:05):
even cause tinatus or ringing in the ears. Sometimes if
it's pushing that hard, you can actually feel dizzy. Itching
is another sign pain if your ear smells. And this
is really interesting, but there's actually a reflex that can
happen when the impacted wax stimulates a branch of the
(20:27):
vagus nerve inside the ear canal that can actually trigger
the cough reflex. And there's actually a term for it.
It's called Arnold's reflex, which you know Arnold, I'm assuming
learned the hard way to imagining Arnold. Was this guy
with just like a ton of ear wax and he
was just coughing.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
You know, It's like, wow, the bad ear odor shocks me, Like,
how would you can you smell that?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Man, ear oorder?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I'm trying to think, Like, over the years, I think
there was only one time I did an ear irrigation
on a patient and this was an elderly patient, and
I remember so much earwax was coming out, and there
was like a strange order, like decades of.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, it was really hard to describe. It was like
the smell.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It was like the smell of because it was so
impacted that eventually it started breaking up once it came out,
and then the stuff that was broken on the inside
was actually fresh that had been like preserved.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, so it was like the smell of fresh seerumen
breaking through to the air.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
It was. Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Is it possible if you're having hearing trouble it's just
an ear wax build up.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I've definitely had cases of that, again, mostly in the elderly,
because many of them were wearing hearing aids, and so
they would come in and say, my hearing aid's not working,
and then I'd look in their ear and it was
like full of wax, and then we'd clear the the
wax and their hearing aid worked again. So that's actually
a very common thing. So yeah, if there's anyone listening
(22:06):
that has a hearing aid, you should, first of all
see the e andt on a regular basis. But I
think it's also just a good thing to get your
ears checked to make sure there's not too much wax.
And you know that E ANDT won't be using a
Q tip to clean your ear. The American Association of
(22:26):
Odolaryngology or Head and Neck Surgery, they actually recognize that
earwax impaction or ceremon impaction is actually a frequent and
reversible cause of hearing loss that is actually very commonly
underdiagnosed in elderly patients, meaning it can mimic or be
(22:47):
mistaken for age related hearing loss, and this is a
very high prevalence. They did a study with over two
hundred people who were older age greater than HDA, and
thirty five percent of them basically had enough earwax in
their ears that you couldn't see their ear drums. And
(23:08):
many of them were just completely unaware that their hearing
was bad. They rated their own hearing as good. And
this is even worse if someone's living in a nursing home.
This data shows that the nursing home data for seramon
impaction goes even higher, like sixty five percent, so your
hearing can actually go down by a lot. And then
(23:33):
the key is you remove the earwax and then it
improves the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
This is also interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
They did a survey of over fourteen thousand elderly people
in the United Kingdom and ten percent of the group
they failed their hearing tests and then they passed after
removing their earwax. Wow, we'll be back with more health
stuff after this break.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So we have a list of ear cleaning dos and don'ts.
So what can you do when you have too much
earwax build up? Here's something you can do. You could
wipe the outer ear with a washcloth and only the
outer ear. Yeah, I'm saying it loud for me.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And then they do sell over the counter earwax softeners
that you can purchase. This shouldn't be used every day,
but you want to read the instructions before you put
anything in your ears. Those are things that you can try.
And then the bulb syringes that exists. You can use
a bulb syringe with some lukewarm water and squirt it
in and again, if the wax easily can come out,
(24:43):
it should come out with that, and if it requires
anything more than that, definitely go see any NT The
things that you don't want to do, For example, they
sell a lot of wax removal devices on the market,
like you know, small plastic or silicone tools that you
(25:04):
can stick in your ear. I would not recommend putting
anything in your ear because it can increase your injury
to your ear drum. At that point, I think it's
better to see a doctor and get checked out there.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I've seen a lot of ads for those of things
that are clearing out the ear to improve hearing. Yeah,
like that's how can they They can legally do that.
There's no regulations or yes.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Sorry, there are a lot of things in this country
that people do that are not good for your health
and there are no regulations against that.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So yeah, it's just crazy because it's like saying, do
you have earwax build up? You're not a professional, but
you probably can tell if you have your rex build up.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Hey, here's this thing.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I'm not a medical professional, either take this thing and
stick it in your ear and see what comes out.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
That just seems doing.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, No, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't recommend someone
does it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
There's also a lot of popular fads around removing ear wax,
Like ear candling is one.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You take this hollow.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Candle that's made out of beeswax and herbs, and you
put it in your ear and then you light the candle.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
This already seems like a terrible idea. Yeah, as you're
describing it, I'm fire near the ear.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Already seems like a very bad idea.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah. And then it's supposed to create like a vacuum
through this sort of chimney effect that is supposed to
pull the wax and the debris out, and they market
it to treat excessive ear wax as well as a
bunch of other things like sinus issues and tinatus and whatnot.
And what the research shows is that the candles they
(26:48):
don't produce enough suction to remove the ear wax.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
That's the catch.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
But for me, it's also the potential injury around oh,
I don't know, a burn, the hush, or potentially even
injuring your ear drum. So I yeah, I would I
would not necessarily recommend ear candling. But when we were
doing research for this episode, we came across lots of
(27:16):
different cultures around the world that have these traditions around
cleaning ears, which I thought was really interesting. In Japan,
they actually have this small spoon shaped tool called a
mimikaki it's done between a mother and a child, and
it involves a ear cleaning practice.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
And even even in India, I don't know if you
knew this.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
There's they're called consoft wallas consoff literally translated to ear
cleaning Valla means sky so consoft Waala's ear cleaning guy.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
And they do this on the street. They're like consoft wallas.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Are they using to clean?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
They they have like a little spoon. Yeah, and then
like tweezers and cotton.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It does. Is it hygienic?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I would not go to a console falla all the
streets of Mumbai personally, no offense to anyone who has,
but I just I wouldn't risk it.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
But I'm also extremely risk averse.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But yeah, like there's there, there's lots of people that
you can see all around the world to clean your ears.
I guess as a physician, I will say, see your
physician if you have ear pain or hearing loss, or
change in your ear pressure or dizziness, or you feel
like there's some kind of blockage because your A and
(28:42):
T or doctors we have sterilized tools.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
That is key.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That is one key that I think is important when
thinking about cleaning your ears. They have sterilized tools that
will not introduce all sorts of crap into your ears exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
And then again, this I had done as a kid,
but I've done it also as a physician. Is the
ear levage or ear irrigation, where you take a syringe
full of water and then you flood the ear with
the water and it just flushes the wax out. And
I've done that and it doesn't hurt. It's just wild.
Like hearing water being scorted into your ear. It's like
(29:18):
super intense, and then when the ear wax comes out,
like you can hear everything. So yeah, that's a wild experience.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Let's get into the Q tips of it all. The
one of the biggest don'ts is using Q tips clean
out your ears. And granted I did it yesterday, but
I shouldn't and it's it gets addictive. Also, the sensation
of cleaning out your ears with the queue gets addictive.
I think everybody kind of knows that you shouldn't be
(29:48):
using Q tips, and many people still do.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Here.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I'll tell you one thing, it's not your fault that
you're addicted or you find it to be addictive to
use Q tips because This is really interesting. Your ear
canal is actually loaded with really sensitive nerve endings. So
Q tips can actually stimulate the vagus nerve, which is
the nerve that triggers the parasympathetic response, which is the
(30:13):
kind of rest and digest relaxation nerves. Yeah, so it
can actually release endorphits. So people sometimes describe using a
Q tip on the ears as like an ear massage,
you know, so I don't blame you for, you know,
feeling like it's addictive, and I get it, like as
a physician or physicians across the world are basically asking
(30:36):
people to stop doing something that actually neurologically rewards them.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
But I think the risk outweighs the benefit.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Because it will compact your ear wax, it could push
it in deeper. Worst case, it could lead to a
punctured ear drum and then you're at risk for infections.
I've seen this a lot. The cotton from the Q
tip actually can break off and then stay in the
ear canal, and I've had to take it out for patients.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It's confusing, I think because Q tips on the box
says it's not used for ears, like it tells you
when it's to used.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
For makeup.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's used around that you like, they don't tell you
to stick the thing in you ear. But even when
it was invented in nineteen twenty three, the inventor saw
his wife cleaning their baby's ears with cotton wrapped around
a toothpick, and which is a much worse idea. A
cotton wrapped around a toothpick. That's wild, and he's I
think I can create a better way. So even though
we're being told not to, even the invention of the
(31:37):
thing was based on cleaning ears.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, that scares the crap out of me. Cleaning
a baby's ears with a toothpick and a piece of
cotton at the end.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yes, very bad.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I guess this is of interesting fact that the original
c tips were actually called baby Gays, referencing the happy
babies after having their ears clean.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That's fascinating. It's a different era, a different time.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think we could bring back Bay games. And then
they change the name to.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Q tips because the Q actually stands for quality tips.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Doctors have been warning against sticking objects in your ears
for over a century, but for some people it does
feel good.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I was using Q tips for a while before I
eventually saw my E and T many years ago, who
was like, you have to stop doing that, and I
was like.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
But it's the only time I release indoor fins.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
You feel like an addict.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You're in that bathroom with the Q tip and you're
just like looking around sticking it in your and you're
just it's just the circular motion.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
The whole thing feels incredible.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, it's a private it's a private moment, a personal moment,
but it's I think it's really important to emphasize that
cotton swab related ear injuries are definitely a thing. There's
an interesting statistic that three dozen children per day end
up in United States and urgency rooms from cotton swab
(33:02):
related ear injuries.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Which is completely preventable.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Again, you don't have to fret about keeping your ears clean.
Your body has a very good natural way of cleaning
your ear wax, pushing it out as it naturally functions.
There's a whole kind of milieu and ecosystem that exists
in the ear that doesn't need to be literally pushed around.
(33:30):
Twelve million Americans visit their doctor every year with complaints
about your wax, and the most common reason is impaction.
So this is obviously a hot topic in medicine.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's hard because it feels like if there was gunk
anywhere else on your body, you would be like, I
got to get rid of this gunk, right, This gunk is.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Making me feel bad.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
It smells bad, it looks bad, but inside your ears, which,
to be fair, no one's really looking. That's where we're like,
we draw the line at this gunk. Yes, gunk is gunk.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
You don't touch.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yes, exactly, that's a great tagline.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
This is gunk.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
You don't touch.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
He'll stop.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So, yeah, folks, everyone knows. If you don't know, we're
here to remind you again. Everyone knows that Q tips
are not needed and definitely not supposed to go in
your ears. If you do have build up, you can
try some over the counter earwax softeners or a suction
bulb with warm water.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And if you aren't actually getting earwax build up or impaction,
just let the wax get pushed out of your ear naturally.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, like talking, chewing, smiling, yeah, things using your jaw. Like,
just just let your body do what it needs to do.
And of course, if you do feel like you're getting
too much build up, go see your doctor because we
have the sterile tools, We have the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
That's our show. This has been another fascinating topic. I'm
glad we covered it. A sticky topic, A sticky topic,
a smelly topic.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Will it change my behavior? We'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I mean I'm curious, now, are you gonna stop using
a Q tabe?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And logically I tell myself, yes, I'm gonna stop using
Q tips for that purpose. And the other part of
me is I can't just use them for my belly button.
That's a lot of C tips. Why do they sell
so many?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Then?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I know they do.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
They sell so many, you buy like five hundred at
a time.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, I think the industry knows what it's doing. They
know that it's gonna be used for your ears. That's
what you need so many.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I'm gonna try.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm going to do my best to not get high
off my own supply of Q tips.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Okay, that sounds like a plan.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
That is my plan.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Health Stuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted by me, Doctor preancle Wally, and Harry Konnebolu.
Producers are Rebecca Eisenberg, Jenna Cagel, Christina Loranger, Maya Howard,
and Katrina Norvell. Our researcher is Maria Tremarchi and our
intern is Katia Zobel Lejayala. To send us a question,
(36:11):
you can email us a voice memo at health Stuff
Podcast at gmail dot com. Thanks so much for listening
This podcast is for information purposes only and should not
be considered professional medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Earwax is not dirty, it's ear security. Yeah, this gunk
is gunk.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
You don't touch. I'm hurry, Condibolu.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm doctor preuncle Wally, and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is health stuff. Hello, doctor Prianca. Hello there, non
doctor Condibolu. How are you.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'm good. I'm good.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I'm just thinking about our topic today. But other than that,
I've been dealing with just some usual mom stuff. Yeah,
like childhood exzema. That's a fun one.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
So yeah, my son has full body egzema, and so
I've I am the food source. So I have had
to go on an elimination diet to try wow figure
out what's the cause, what's the culprit, and cutting out
dear and nuts and eggs and basically all the fun stuff.
(01:05):
And so yeah, fortunately it's gotten a lot better. But
right now we're in a guessing game territory until we
figure this out.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
There's no test where they can test you and the
baby and figure out what is going on.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
We're going to get a test.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I was a little hesitant because he's so young and
doing blood draws and stuff. I think We're definitely gonna
head in that direction. But yeah, that was my weekend.
My weekend was basically figuring out the menu for myself.
So I'm basically on like a meat and veg diet
at this point.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Right now, I just thought about what you said about
drawing blood from a baby. I can't even imagine that process.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
When they're teeny teeny, they get it from their foot, right,
and they just take drops from their foot. I swear
I am already saving money for my children's ayahuasca fun
down the line, the therapy fund. Trust me, I'm saving
now for that.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
This is one of the joys of parenthood is you
think of about the trauma you might have created for
your child later, and you hope to God that it
isn't what happened, and then you probably get hit with
something else, Oh that that's what caused the trauma.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
I swear it literally keeps me up at night.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I worry about some of the decisions that I've made
and if I'm going to be responsible for the ayahuasca
retreat in thirty.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Years from now.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
But the thing I've learned becoming a parent is you
have to have lots of compassion and for yourself and
your child, and you're not going to do it perfectly.
It's going to get messed up. And you're doing the
best that you can, you know what I mean. And
that's all we can.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Do until the kid starts blaming you, and then that's
not enough of an answer.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I know, I am ready for the blame.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
My personality is I tend to blame myself anyway in
those situations in an argument, I'll be the one to
be like, no, this is my faulty, and so I'm
already prepared for that.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
You know what I mean. Just give me the list
of grievances.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We're going to talk today about a very weird, but icky,
but very pertinent subject today.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Yes, earwax. I think about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Okay, so I have to ask you a question. Did
you have a lot of ear rex build up when
you were a kid?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Not that I can.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I can remember because I always loved taking the Q
tip and putting it in my ear and getting all
the wax up.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Because when you clean your body, you rarely.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Get the satisfaction of really feeling like, oh, I'm look
at all the dirt that came off my body.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You don't get to see the filth that you've removed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
But with earwax, it feels like, look at me, I
just took something filthy out of my body. I'm cleaner
now because I stuck this thing in my which, by
the way, it is not something they recommend you do
sticking a Q tip in your ear. I always assumed
that was one of the purposes of a Q tip,
considering it's an object that fits an ear sized hole
(03:54):
perfectly right, like the hole is just it's like the
perfect thing to fit in there. But apparently it's not
supposed to be used for that. But I always felt
good cleaning my ears and feeling like, look at all
this gunk that I get out of there. But apparently
that gunk is very important.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
The gunk is not only important.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And we're going to talk exactly about why Q tips
are not the right thing to do with your ears.
Growing up, I had a tremendous amount of earwax build up.
I have these memories throughout childhood of needing to do
ear irrigations on my ears.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
What does that mean?
Speaker 1 (04:34):
So basically, they would take a syringe and squirt water
into my ear to push all the extra wax out
that would come out, and I very clearly recall because
my dad is a physician, so he would bring the
syringe just home, so we would like do this at home,
and we had to do this. I must have been
(04:55):
once a quarter where they had to take earwax out
of my ear. And there's this thing that happens, like
when your ears get full of earwax. And there's lots
of reasons why earx develops, and we'll talk about that,
but when you get a lot of earwax in your
ear and then you actually remove it with a syringe
and flush it all out through an ear irrigation, one
(05:19):
thing that happens is all of a sudden, you're hearing
gets super good all of a sudden, like you can
hear just every single noise, and it would always be
this likesh sound it would come out of my ear.
And then suddenly I had basically like echo location statuses
like it was. It was so wild, and I just
(05:42):
had a lot of earx build up.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
But how did you know you had earwax build up?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Because then my dad would look in my ear and
be like, WHOA, I can't see anything that's completely blocked
there's just so much ear wax.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
I can't even see your ear drum.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Is it possible that people have earwax build up and
they don't know, Like, how would they know?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
It's very possible that they don't know. Maybe they're hard
of hearing. If you have severe iarwax build xs, sometimes
it can even cause dizziness. It can affect your inner
ear if there's that much pressure. But yeah, if you're
hard of hearing, and maybe you might find yourself itching
your ear, or worst case scenario, you have chunks of
earwacks falling out of your ear, which at one point,
(06:24):
like did happen to be as a kid, there was
so much earwax, then that would be a sign that, hey,
maybe you need to get your ears looked at and
cleaned out. This topic is very near and dear to
my heart because it goes way back back to childhood.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
It's near and dear to your ear, it's near and
dear to my ear.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yes, so let me lend let's lend an ear to
this next section. Oh no, that was terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Again, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your your wax earwax.
So I guess my first question is what does it do.
And also this is not a question that's particularly useful,
but why is it yellow?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
The yellow color depends on whether it's a wet type
of ear wax or a dry type. So the wet
type is that more yellow, honey colored, it's generally sticky,
and then the dry type it can be grayer, maybe tan,
it's more flaky. Sometimes if it's super dark like black,
(07:29):
that actually means the wax has not only dried out,
but probably been compacted on top of each other. And
the type of wax, believe it or not, it's determined
by a gene. They've actually been able to isolate the
gene that determines the ear wax type, and it's called
(07:51):
the ABCC eleven gene. This same gene, there's sort of
racial differentferences between the gene and how it presents in
different populations. East Asian populations they tend to have more
dry earwax, so like the flaky, gray colored one, whereas
(08:13):
European and African populations they tend to have more of
the wet earwax. And fun fact, this ABCC eleven gene
not only does it determine what kind of earwax you have,
but it also determines whether or not you have underarm odor.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Really, so not everybody has underarm odor, is what you're saying,
yea is not everybody has the gene for it.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Correct, Correct?
Speaker 1 (08:40):
You go back to the East Asian populations, more commonly.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
The dry earwax and also little to no body order.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah so yeah, so what does earwax do? Like, how
does it help your body?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So it's really actually a very critical tool that our
body uses to trap dust, germs, and debris before it
reaches the ear drum. And ear wax is made of
secretions from your body, but also the skin cells from
(09:13):
your deadskin and your hair and just debris like dust
and all that stuff. It's not when we call it
ear wax. It's not actually wax, which would indicate it's
like a pure kind of thing. It's actually made of
lots of different properties. In fact, it even has antibacterial properties.
And the medical term for ear wax is serumen, which
(09:34):
is really annoying because the word men isnt it yet?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Kidding, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It repels water to protect the ear canal and ear drum.
It has anti bacterial properties, and it moisturizes the ear
canal to prevent dry, itchy ears. So that's that's valuable,
very valuable. In fact, the name serumon it's Latin Latin words.
Sira is Latin for wax, and they called it seramon
(10:01):
in the seventeen hundreds because it has a waxy sort
of feel to it, so literally translated earwax. I think
it's important and this is something I'm going to repeat
to myself. Earwax is not dirty, it's ear security.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
If you have ear wax, it doesn't mean you have
bad hygiene. It means actually your ears are functioning normally.
And that I think that's really important to normalize because
as a kid growing up with lots of earwax, I'm
so fortunate that I had parents that normalized earwax. They
never there was never any shame about it because they knew,
(10:40):
oh no, this is a sign that the ears are
like really functioning properly.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
And if you completely remove all your.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Earwax, then what your body does is it will sort
of respond by just making more.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
More after this break. Wait, So I shouldn't be cleaning
my ears out with Q tips.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Definitely not with Q tips definitely.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Not, Because I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I
feel like that's a lot of Americans who are doing
the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Many They've done a lot of studies actually of people,
including healthcare workers. Believe it or not, there were studies
in healthcare workers where basically they did a survey and
they found that ninety percent of the hospital staff were
cleaning their ears with things like Q tips.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
So, yeah, we definitely shouldn't.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
And actually there's a lot of marketing around this idea
that you need the Q tip to clean your ear,
but you don't need to fall for that. Moving your
jaw actually allows your ear canal to push wax out
on its own, So doing things like chewing and talking
(11:56):
will help actually clean your ears naturally.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
What happened when you clean your ears? Is it damaging
your ear at all? Or is it just pushing wax
in or what is? What are the negative effects of
it other than getting rid of this thing that is valuable.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, so even if you're doing something like taking a
clean Q tip and putting it in your ear to
scrape the ear wax out, you're still risking pushing and
impacting and compacting that wax in. And then that's where
you lead to issues because that can affect your hearing,
and that can eventually cause itching as well and cause
(12:35):
the wax to get really black and hard, which we
don't want. So generally, putting anything in your ears is
not something that you want to do. I once saw
an ear doctor. I remember he told me this. I
was like, one of the things that happens is when
I take a shower, my whole body gets wet and
then the moisture goes inside of the ear, and what
(12:58):
do I do about that? And so he was like,
first of all, wipe the outer ear with a washcloth,
like only the outer ear. But if you have too
much earwax built up in your ear, they do have
things like earwax softeners, like mineral oil or baby oil,
and you could put a drop in and then use
(13:18):
like a bulb syringe with lukewarm water to like take
it out, and that's you know, the bulb syringe is
really really gentle on you. I definitely remember having that
done on me as a kid. But then if you
have if more of a build up at that point
and you're not getting it out, you need to go
see an E and T to get this taken out.
(13:39):
They'll use either a syringe or a special little it's
called a cure tage, just like a teenyteny spoon, and
they'll just sort of scoop it out.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I mean, this is not something we should The syringe
thing is not something we should do on our own.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
It's not possible to do it on your own. I
mean I would not recommend doing it on your own.
I think that would be basically close to impossible because
you can't gate, you can't syringe your own ear. That
would be very difficult.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Because I think about the fact that it's not just cute.
If I'm putting in my ears, I'm putting in earbuds
or earplugs on a plane. There are things that I
do just to block sound or do you listen to
music or whatever else?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Like right, what is that?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
What is something happening to the inside of my ear
into the ear wax when I do that?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, one hundred percent. And I've been guilty of this
as well. I stopped using earbuds at some point for
this reason. So anytime you put something in your ear canal,
whether it's an earbud or a hearing aid or even
those foam earplugs, you are introducing outside bacteria into your
(14:45):
ear canal, So you're basically affecting the natural defenses that
are already set up in the ear canal against bacteria.
That's the first thing you're doing. The second thing that
can happen is that you're also trapping moisture, so that
moisture would naturally be expelled by the ear, especially if
you're not cleaning your earbuds, which let's be honest, like
(15:08):
who cleans their earbuds after each use or hearing It's
a lot of people use hearing its and they don't
clean it after each use.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
That is really a source of.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Infection or a source of bacteria that can go into
your ear canal. And then if you share earbuds like
that can be a very like friendly or even romantic
thing to do, but when you share earbuds, you're potentially
sharing bacteria that can then increase the risk of developing
sort of complications. And I personally, there was a point
(15:42):
where this was like pre pandemic. I was flying a lot,
flying all over and I'm really sensitive to loud noises,
and so airplane noise when you're in the airplane is
I experienced it as really loud, so I always wear
ear plugs, like the foam earplugs, and I started to
notice with all the flights that I was taking that
(16:02):
my ears were getting really itchy, and I just felt
like there was something going on. And what was going
on is I was affecting the natural kind of environment
in the ear canal by plugging it up, introducing or
trapping the moisture, and then introducing like outside bacteria, even
(16:23):
if the earplugs were brand new and clean.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
So that's why there's because sometimes I feel like my
ears are itchy, and that's when I put a cute
tip in. I'm like, this will make it stop itching,
but that's actually making it worse.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Probably.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, So if you find that your ear is getting
really itchy and you're even noticing like stuff coming out
at that point, it might not be a bad idea
to go see an ent to see do you need
maybe a couple drops of a medication to break the
cycle and reset everything so that you can start afresh.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I do want to give props to us for the
show for wearing over the ear headphones instead of the
ones that go in your ear, because we're practicing good
ear hygiene.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I have shared earbuds with people before, but it has
never felt good. Yeah, it has never felt like something
I should be doing. Simple act of Okay, now there's
your ear wax and whatever gunk on this thing, and
now I'm cleaning it off and putting it in my
ear right now, my gunks on it.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Like this is what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Do you think they should make like little earbud condoms
that people should.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
So it's like you're protected.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
You know, that's hilarious, especially if they're called ear condoms.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
The other thing I really don't like about the in
ear earbuds is that they can cause hearing damage. We
know that listening to music too loud can cause hearing
loss over time. But the thing about the in ear
earbuds is that they are transmitting the acoustic ear energy
(18:01):
directly into your auditory canal. And what do a lot
of people do when they have earbuds in you're at
a coffee shop or maybe you're in a loud environment.
They turn up the volume so that they can hear
above the ambient environment, so they're actually blasting even more
(18:22):
sound into their ear. In fact, the safest thing to
do if using in ear earbuds is to keep the
volume around or below fifty percent of the maximum and
to limit how long you use them. I like the
sixty sixty rule, which is no more than sixty percent
(18:43):
of the volume for no more than sixty minutes, or
even better as the fifty to fifty rule, no more
than fifty percent of the volume for fifty minutes.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
And this is where like.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Noise canceling earbuds are probably a slight step above the
regular in air earbuds because with the noise canceling it
removes the ambient noise, so you don't have to actually
increase the volume. Yeah, to hear over everything, like on
an airplane, Like on an airplane, Yeah, exactly, be really
(19:13):
careful because if you ever get tinatus or ringing in
the ears, that could be a sign that there's some
ear damage happening.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Now, the things that can increase earwax build up you
have heavy sweating, stress, excess ear hair, chronic ear infections, aging, overcleaning,
which is guilty right here, genetics, and some people just
produce more ear wax than others.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
And when there's too much wax build up in the ear,
it's actually called impaction, that's the medical term, and that
can affect your hearing. So, like, what could be some
signs of impacted earwax If all of a sudden your
hearing's a bit muffled, severe impaction, You can actually feel
fullness in your ear or ear pressure. Sometimes it can
(20:05):
even cause tinatus or ringing in the ears. Sometimes if
it's pushing that hard, you can actually feel dizzy. Itching
is another sign pain if your ear smells. And this
is really interesting, but there's actually a reflex that can
happen when the impacted wax stimulates a branch of the
(20:27):
vagus nerve inside the ear canal that can actually trigger
the cough reflex. And there's actually a term for it.
It's called Arnold's reflex, which you know Arnold, I'm assuming
learned the hard way to imagining Arnold. Was this guy
with just like a ton of ear wax and he
was just coughing.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
You know, It's like, wow, the bad ear odor shocks me, Like,
how would you can you smell that?
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Man, ear oorder?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I'm trying to think, Like, over the years, I think
there was only one time I did an ear irrigation
on a patient and this was an elderly patient, and
I remember so much earwax was coming out, and there
was like a strange order, like decades of.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah, it was really hard to describe. It was like
the smell.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
It was like the smell of because it was so
impacted that eventually it started breaking up once it came out,
and then the stuff that was broken on the inside
was actually fresh that had been like preserved.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, so it was like the smell of fresh seerumen
breaking through to the air.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
It was. Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Is it possible if you're having hearing trouble it's just
an ear wax build up.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
I've definitely had cases of that, again, mostly in the elderly,
because many of them were wearing hearing aids, and so
they would come in and say, my hearing aid's not working,
and then I'd look in their ear and it was
like full of wax, and then we'd clear the the
wax and their hearing aid worked again. So that's actually
a very common thing. So yeah, if there's anyone listening
(22:06):
that has a hearing aid, you should, first of all
see the e andt on a regular basis. But I
think it's also just a good thing to get your
ears checked to make sure there's not too much wax.
And you know that E ANDT won't be using a
Q tip to clean your ear. The American Association of
(22:26):
Odolaryngology or Head and Neck Surgery, they actually recognize that
earwax impaction or ceremon impaction is actually a frequent and
reversible cause of hearing loss that is actually very commonly
underdiagnosed in elderly patients, meaning it can mimic or be
(22:47):
mistaken for age related hearing loss, and this is a
very high prevalence. They did a study with over two
hundred people who were older age greater than HDA, and
thirty five percent of them basically had enough earwax in
their ears that you couldn't see their ear drums. And
(23:08):
many of them were just completely unaware that their hearing
was bad. They rated their own hearing as good. And
this is even worse if someone's living in a nursing home.
This data shows that the nursing home data for seramon
impaction goes even higher, like sixty five percent, so your
hearing can actually go down by a lot. And then
(23:33):
the key is you remove the earwax and then it
improves the hearing.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
This is also interesting.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
They did a survey of over fourteen thousand elderly people
in the United Kingdom and ten percent of the group
they failed their hearing tests and then they passed after
removing their earwax. Wow, we'll be back with more health
stuff after this break.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
So we have a list of ear cleaning dos and don'ts.
So what can you do when you have too much
earwax build up? Here's something you can do. You could
wipe the outer ear with a washcloth and only the
outer ear. Yeah, I'm saying it loud for me.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And then they do sell over the counter earwax softeners
that you can purchase. This shouldn't be used every day,
but you want to read the instructions before you put
anything in your ears. Those are things that you can try.
And then the bulb syringes that exists. You can use
a bulb syringe with some lukewarm water and squirt it
in and again, if the wax easily can come out,
(24:43):
it should come out with that, and if it requires
anything more than that, definitely go see any NT The
things that you don't want to do, For example, they
sell a lot of wax removal devices on the market,
like you know, small plastic or silicone tools that you
(25:04):
can stick in your ear. I would not recommend putting
anything in your ear because it can increase your injury
to your ear drum. At that point, I think it's
better to see a doctor and get checked out there.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
I've seen a lot of ads for those of things
that are clearing out the ear to improve hearing. Yeah,
like that's how can they They can legally do that.
There's no regulations or yes.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Sorry, there are a lot of things in this country
that people do that are not good for your health
and there are no regulations against that.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So yeah, it's just crazy because it's like saying, do
you have earwax build up? You're not a professional, but
you probably can tell if you have your rex build up.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Hey, here's this thing.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I'm not a medical professional, either take this thing and
stick it in your ear and see what comes out.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
That just seems doing.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, No, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't recommend someone
does it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
There's also a lot of popular fads around removing ear wax,
Like ear candling is one.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You take this hollow.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Candle that's made out of beeswax and herbs, and you
put it in your ear and then you light the candle.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
This already seems like a terrible idea. Yeah, as you're
describing it, I'm fire near the ear.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Already seems like a very bad idea.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah. And then it's supposed to create like a vacuum
through this sort of chimney effect that is supposed to
pull the wax and the debris out, and they market
it to treat excessive ear wax as well as a
bunch of other things like sinus issues and tinatus and whatnot.
And what the research shows is that the candles they
(26:48):
don't produce enough suction to remove the ear wax.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
That's the catch.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
But for me, it's also the potential injury around oh,
I don't know, a burn, the hush, or potentially even
injuring your ear drum. So I yeah, I would I
would not necessarily recommend ear candling. But when we were
doing research for this episode, we came across lots of
(27:16):
different cultures around the world that have these traditions around
cleaning ears, which I thought was really interesting. In Japan,
they actually have this small spoon shaped tool called a
mimikaki it's done between a mother and a child, and
it involves a ear cleaning practice.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
And even even in India, I don't know if you
knew this.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
There's they're called consoft wallas consoff literally translated to ear
cleaning Valla means sky so consoft Waala's ear cleaning guy.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
And they do this on the street. They're like consoft wallas.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Are they using to clean?
Speaker 1 (27:59):
They they have like a little spoon. Yeah, and then
like tweezers and cotton.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It does. Is it hygienic?
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
I would not go to a console falla all the
streets of Mumbai personally, no offense to anyone who has,
but I just I wouldn't risk it.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
But I'm also extremely risk averse.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
But yeah, like there's there, there's lots of people that
you can see all around the world to clean your ears.
I guess as a physician, I will say, see your
physician if you have ear pain or hearing loss, or
change in your ear pressure or dizziness, or you feel
like there's some kind of blockage because your A and
(28:42):
T or doctors we have sterilized tools.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
That is key.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
That is one key that I think is important when
thinking about cleaning your ears. They have sterilized tools that
will not introduce all sorts of crap into your ears exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
And then again, this I had done as a kid,
but I've done it also as a physician. Is the
ear levage or ear irrigation, where you take a syringe
full of water and then you flood the ear with
the water and it just flushes the wax out. And
I've done that and it doesn't hurt. It's just wild.
Like hearing water being scorted into your ear. It's like
(29:18):
super intense, and then when the ear wax comes out,
like you can hear everything. So yeah, that's a wild experience.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Let's get into the Q tips of it all. The
one of the biggest don'ts is using Q tips clean
out your ears. And granted I did it yesterday, but
I shouldn't and it's it gets addictive. Also, the sensation
of cleaning out your ears with the queue gets addictive.
I think everybody kind of knows that you shouldn't be
(29:48):
using Q tips, and many people still do.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Here.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
I'll tell you one thing, it's not your fault that
you're addicted or you find it to be addictive to
use Q tips because This is really interesting. Your ear
canal is actually loaded with really sensitive nerve endings. So
Q tips can actually stimulate the vagus nerve, which is
the nerve that triggers the parasympathetic response, which is the
(30:13):
kind of rest and digest relaxation nerves. Yeah, so it
can actually release endorphits. So people sometimes describe using a
Q tip on the ears as like an ear massage,
you know, so I don't blame you for, you know,
feeling like it's addictive, and I get it, like as
a physician or physicians across the world are basically asking
(30:36):
people to stop doing something that actually neurologically rewards them.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
But I think the risk outweighs the benefit.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Because it will compact your ear wax, it could push
it in deeper. Worst case, it could lead to a
punctured ear drum and then you're at risk for infections.
I've seen this a lot. The cotton from the Q
tip actually can break off and then stay in the
ear canal, and I've had to take it out for patients.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
It's confusing, I think because Q tips on the box
says it's not used for ears, like it tells you
when it's to used.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
For makeup.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
It's used around that you like, they don't tell you
to stick the thing in you ear. But even when
it was invented in nineteen twenty three, the inventor saw
his wife cleaning their baby's ears with cotton wrapped around
a toothpick, and which is a much worse idea. A
cotton wrapped around a toothpick. That's wild, and he's I
think I can create a better way. So even though
we're being told not to, even the invention of the
(31:37):
thing was based on cleaning ears.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, yeah, that scares the crap out of me. Cleaning
a baby's ears with a toothpick and a piece of
cotton at the end.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Yes, very bad.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
I guess this is of interesting fact that the original
c tips were actually called baby Gays, referencing the happy
babies after having their ears clean.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
That's fascinating. It's a different era, a different time.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I think we could bring back Bay games. And then
they change the name to.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Q tips because the Q actually stands for quality tips.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Doctors have been warning against sticking objects in your ears
for over a century, but for some people it does
feel good.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
I hear you.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I was using Q tips for a while before I
eventually saw my E and T many years ago, who
was like, you have to stop doing that, and I
was like.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
But it's the only time I release indoor fins.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
You feel like an addict.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
You're in that bathroom with the Q tip and you're
just like looking around sticking it in your and you're
just it's just the circular motion.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
The whole thing feels incredible.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, it's a private it's a private moment, a personal moment,
but it's I think it's really important to emphasize that
cotton swab related ear injuries are definitely a thing. There's
an interesting statistic that three dozen children per day end
up in United States and urgency rooms from cotton swab
(33:02):
related ear injuries.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Which is completely preventable.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Again, you don't have to fret about keeping your ears clean.
Your body has a very good natural way of cleaning
your ear wax, pushing it out as it naturally functions.
There's a whole kind of milieu and ecosystem that exists
in the ear that doesn't need to be literally pushed around.
(33:30):
Twelve million Americans visit their doctor every year with complaints
about your wax, and the most common reason is impaction.
So this is obviously a hot topic in medicine.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's hard because it feels like if there was gunk
anywhere else on your body, you would be like, I
got to get rid of this gunk, right, This gunk is.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Making me feel bad.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
It smells bad, it looks bad, but inside your ears, which,
to be fair, no one's really looking. That's where we're like,
we draw the line at this gunk. Yes, gunk is gunk.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
You don't touch.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yes, exactly, that's a great tagline.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
This is gunk.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
You don't touch.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
He'll stop.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So, yeah, folks, everyone knows. If you don't know, we're
here to remind you again. Everyone knows that Q tips
are not needed and definitely not supposed to go in
your ears. If you do have build up, you can
try some over the counter earwax softeners or a suction
bulb with warm water.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And if you aren't actually getting earwax build up or impaction,
just let the wax get pushed out of your ear naturally.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Yeah, like talking, chewing, smiling, yeah, things using your jaw. Like,
just just let your body do what it needs to do.
And of course, if you do feel like you're getting
too much build up, go see your doctor because we
have the sterile tools, We have the good stuff.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
That's our show. This has been another fascinating topic. I'm
glad we covered it. A sticky topic, A sticky topic,
a smelly topic.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Will it change my behavior? We'll see.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I mean I'm curious, now, are you gonna stop using
a Q tabe?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
And logically I tell myself, yes, I'm gonna stop using
Q tips for that purpose. And the other part of
me is I can't just use them for my belly button.
That's a lot of C tips. Why do they sell
so many?
Speaker 3 (35:24):
Then?
Speaker 4 (35:24):
I know they do.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
They sell so many, you buy like five hundred at
a time.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, I think the industry knows what it's doing. They
know that it's gonna be used for your ears. That's
what you need so many.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
I'm gonna try.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I'm going to do my best to not get high
off my own supply of Q tips.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
Okay, that sounds like a plan.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
That is my plan.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
Health Stuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted by me, Doctor preancle Wally, and Harry Konnebolu.
Producers are Rebecca Eisenberg, Jenna Cagel, Christina Loranger, Maya Howard,
and Katrina Norvell. Our researcher is Maria Tremarchi and our
intern is Katia Zobel Lejayala. To send us a question,
(36:11):
you can email us a voice memo at health Stuff
Podcast at gmail dot com. Thanks so much for listening
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