Did you know you can safely clean wax out of your ears?
You don’t need me as your doctor to do it.
“Safely” means NOT using a Q-tip in your ear canal.
That can be disastrous, even if you have done it for years. A relevant study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that using cotton swabs to clean your ears is a major cause of eardrum perforation. That perforation may or may not heal.
First, you have to question why is wax accumulating in your ears?
And why do our ears make it anyway?
Natural Process
One miracle of our bodies is that we are self-cleaning. This includes the ears.
Our skin protects itself naturally with fluids it produces and native microbes. There are glands in your ear canal which produce sweat and oil for that protection.
As skin cells slough off, they mix with the secretions of the oil and sweat glands to produce cerumen. This is what you know as ear wax. The tiny hairs in the ear canal help move the cerumen down the ear canal and out.
In addition, movements such as chewing and talking help move the cerumen along and out the ear canal. In so doing, the cerumen removes any debris, cleaning out the ear.
If this natural process is left alone, you should have clean clear ears.
Ears clogged?
Huh? You ask: What did you say? You say yours are clogged?
The most common cause of too much cerumen is a deficiency of omega 3 essential fatty acids.
The typical American diet is loaded with omega 6 fats and the 3’s are few and far between. The proportion of omega 3 to omega 6 is what is important. It is hard to say what is optimal, but our ancestors ate a ratio of omega 3:6 of about 1:1, varying from 4:1 to 1:4. Modern eating is at least a proportion of 1:16, which is very skewed.
Even people who think they are eating healthy often do not get the right proportion of omega 3’s to 6’s. You need to include eating grass-fed meat, wild deep-sea fish such as salmon, tuna, sardines, halibut, and herring as sources of omega 3’s. For the right proportion, you need to minimize nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils which are sources of omega 6.
This is not to mention processed foods which load our bodies with omega 6’s, trans fats, and all sorts of substances never seen by our ancestors, leaving us depleted of omega 3’s.
So, if your lifestyle is not ideal, your ears need a little help in cleaning out the cerumen.
Be careful, because you may be removing the ear canal’s natural protection. Too frequent cleaning may dry out your ear canal losing the natural protection and can even affect your hearing.
Home Procedure
To help clean out your ear canal yourself at home, I will describe a procedure you can follow.
Collect:
- an eye dropper,
- olive or liquid coconut oil,
- a bottle of 3% hydrogen peroxide,
- tissues, and
- a towel.
Step 1
First, we will soften the cerumen in your ear canal.
Lie on your side with a towel under your head.
Put a few drops of oil in the ear canal facing up.
Rest a few minutes there to allow the cerumen to soften.
Step 2
To clear everything out, keep lying with that ear up.
Now pour a capful of 3% hydrogen peroxide in your ear canal. You may hear fizzing and it may bubble up as you feel it working, perhaps tickling or stinging your ear canal.
Wait 5 minutes, then put a tissue to that ear and turn so the ear faces down (over the towel) and can drain onto the tissue.
Steps 3 & 4
Repeat this procedure with the other ear.
Anything else?
There is an over-the-counter product containing carbamide peroxide. It has been proven to be effective for the removal of earwax.
It softens cerumen and releases oxygen to foam in the ear and remove cerumen and other debris, just like your home remedy.
I ask: why buy anything if you have the know-how plus olive oil and hydrogen peroxide at home?
Note that you may also want to gently rinse the ear canal with warm water to help get all loose particles out of your ear. A bulb syringe can give a gentle rinse.
Remember that your ears are naturally self-cleaning.
Are your lifestyle and nutrition ideal? If not, you may want to follow this simple at-home procedure to get out ear wax when it has accumulated.
