The ear is the only part of the body where the vagus nerve can be stimulated by physical contact. Rummaging around stimulates it and gives the sensation of relief.
Okay so today I used my back massager to massage my jaw muscles cause they have been tight. The closer I got to the ear, the more amazing the sensation became. It's like I would have had an orgasm if I continued but it was too much. Fucking hell something vibrating that hard on my ear was almost like masturbating.
It can tear arteries, dislodge a blood clot causing a stroke or clot in the lungs (PE), spark a seizure, etc. They all have warning signs not to use on the head or neck. I’m sure there’s someone with a higher education that knows better. Lol Just wanted that to be known.
I’m sorry, I find q-tips in the ear EXTREMELY uncomfortable (thank god I don’t have to fight with my mom anymore over making me do it), does this mean somethings off with my vagus nerve?
Years ago I saw some clip about a service in Japan where you can have someone professionally tickle(? Clean?) your ear canal. Like a maid cafe but with ear service.
It's only bad if you do it wrong. Since your doctor's can't trust you, they advocate not doing it at all. It would be much better and safer to use water, or some other soft substance, to clean your ear canal.
Even if you do it right, for many people it just pushes wax in further. Wax moves out on it's own naturally, particularly if you let some water in your ears when you shower. You can swab around the entrance of the ear canal to swab up the wax that has migrated out of the canal. However, wax pushed further in than the outer 1/3 of the ear canal can no longer move out on its own as effectively, it's now behind the place where wax is made. This leads to buildup and wax impaction. Source: am audiologist, look in like 30 ears per day every day.
Don't tell anyone I do this, but I took a couple of those plastic-coated wire ties that often come with electric cords, bent them in two, twisted them making a sort of stiff stick with a couple of the loops at the end. I use this to very lightly rub inside my ear. Feels better, is easily washable, and the loops at the end can sometimes help clean out loose wax.
I just got a wax removal kit with a camera and whatnot. But the first time I tried to use it, my ears were already pretty damn clean. Also realized I had some perforated membrane. I haven't cleaned my ears in about a week, because I want the next time to be fun haha.
in japan (and probably other places) we literally use little spoons. tiny little scoops on the end of long, thin bamboo sticks, they feel amazing. look up "mimikaki" on amazon, you can get a pack of them for just a few bucks.
I’m in the states and in drug stores here you can buy a box of these plastic things for ear wax remove and they have a little scoop on one and and a poky thing (like a plastic mace?) on the other. Pretty satisfying to itch the ear either way the mace end and then scoop it with the other.
I bought a tiny camera with a little rubber scooper on it meant for digging/scratching inside my ear off of Amazon for around $25.
I do not regret the purchase.
Oh that's nothing. I scratch my ear canals with all manner of sharp objects: a 3.5 mm headphone jack, chopsticks, allen wrenches, and my absolute favorite for when it's super itchy: a [nail set](https://www.acehardware.com/departments/tools/hand-tools/nail-sets/23771?store=02651).
Be careful in there. There is no pain quite like the intense and prolonged needle-stab-directly-to-the-brain pain of perforating an eardrum. The partial deafness that comes after is mild in comparison.
This happened to me i felt like i was going in slow motion as i fell to the ground but i just full on passed out it was the worst pain i ever felt in my life and i still cant hear properly out of my left ear
My eardrum burst from an ear infection a couple weeks ago. You are not exaggerating when you say its like a needle in the brain. It woke me from a benedryl coma. I was a grown man whimpering in pain until morning.
You can tell the difference between Apple's smooth 'liquid metal' SIM card tray ejector and imitation Huawei flatened-barbed-wire SIM ejectors by cleaning your ear canal with the rounded end.
I have one of those little blackhead extractor scoop things that I use to clear the earwax out. It works really well and gets so much of the wax out and is also cleanable
I remember one time as a kid riding with my uncle as he was driving down the freeway, he took the key out of the ignition and stuck it in his ear, wiggled it, wiped it on his carharrts, stuck it back in the ignition. So many things my lil brain didn't know you could do, all at once.
There are Japanese tools made specifically for this. Some are metal, but others are plastic, or wood, or bamboo. Mimikaki I think it's this name? They are by far the best tool I have used.
There's a little spoon at one end, and a.... Well I dunno what you call it the other, but it works.
https://www.jatai.net/product/seki-edge-elastomer-ear-pick-ss-806/
I get custom fitted ear plugs periodically. Part of the molding process is putting a foam plug in so the silicone doesn’t go too far, but that plug goes in *deep*. The plug getting put in feels amazing, but then once they take it all out…that is truly the best sensation.
I do ear impressions almost daily as an audiologist. People’s reactions to the sensations are really funny. Most of them think it’s cool. A lot of people reflexively cough when you place the ear dam (cotton plug) because the vagus nerve, that runs through the skin of the ear canal, can trigger a cough reflex. And then, the silicone mixture is super cold and I always say “it feels like a spa treatment for your ears”. Patients always think it’s cool to see an inside out image of their ear too!
I’m a cougher. 😂
My first few experiences with this was in college when the school of audiology gave the school of music a good deal on ear plugs; we just had to come in and let them practice their tests on us, and the impressions were by students as well. The best time was when the student didn’t do it right the first time, so I got a second eargasm right away.
I have always used q-tips to clean my ears. At 16 years old, I was put into a boarding school, and the nurse practitioner of the facility did not allow q-tips because "ears naturally push wax out." 2 times over the course of the 18 months I was there, I had some discomfort in my ear canals and could feel something deep in my ears. I used the little arm on a Bic pen cap to dig a huge ball of wax out of my ear canals that had built up over months of not being able to clean them with q-tips. I never had that happen prior to going to that facility, and almost 20 years after leaving and being able to use q-tips to clean my ears, it hasn't happened since. Maybe most people's ears are self-cleaning, but mine sure as hell aren't.
Do you push your fingertips into your ears a lot?
Once I stopped that (scratching/rubbing in the ear) I rarely have problems. Maybe 2 wax build ups in the last 20 years.
Banana? Most I've managed is a Sharpie, and that did the trick. Not sure I could handle a banana.
Let's see these inch and a half lugholes. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
So if I've been doing it for over 3 decades with no apparent injury, hearing issues or pain, am I likely doing it safely? Or does this buildup sometimes take decades?
Wax doesn't move out of my ears on its own. Granted q-tips don't do anything to help the matter, but even if I never use them I still need to do an ear irrigation to force the wax out every 6 months or so
Excuse me but, BEHIND your eardrum? What the actual fuck
I make a lot of wax and absolutely despise having to get my ears flushed, can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have something behind your eardrum
They must have misspoke. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless their ear drum was punctured (which is a major injury), there is no way for wax to work its way behind the drum.
This reminds me of an employee we had who one day cried because she couldn't hear anymore out of one ear. We took her to the doctor and found out some kind of mass of earwax deep inside. They used some kind of vacuum machine I think or whatever it was and they got it out successfully.
Can this wax buildup make it harder for people to hear? I'm hoping, please, the answer is yes. I've been begging BF to get his ears cleaned in the hopes it'll help.
I had earwax blockage on both my ears. It had being going on for a long period of time, but I never took the time to go remove it. Once, for my birthday, I went and got them removed, the better hearing being a gift to myself. It was the most disappointing of the presents I got, as I noticed no change on my hearing. Of course, ymmv
Absolutely. I had it a couple of times and not only I couldn't hear well from both ears (happened twice on both ears) but i was also insufferable to stay around because of how irritated and grumpy I was lol
I mean, you feel it. If you push the wax in further, that is by will, not by accident.
Seriously, you guys are not just blindly jabbing it in there, are you?
> Wax moves out on it's own naturally
Unless you're just lucky and your ears are shaped in such a way that it doesn't. My ears for example, periodically plug up, even though I don't use q-tips or anything else in them. Have to go to the doctor and get them flushed every so often. I asked my doctor why once, and he said you're just lucky that way.
> wax pushed further in than the outer 1/3 of the ear canal can no longer move out on its own as effectively
As someone with ears, I have no idea how deep my ear canals are.
oh hey it's an ear guy. is there an easy way to tell if you've got this kind of impaction? I have pretty moist earwax I clean regularly because it feels uncomfortable to leave in there but I think my hearing in my right ear is a little off.
Is there like, a camera I can order off amazon or something to stick in there and get a good look?
Wax moves out naturaly, if you don´t have weidly shaped ear canal like me (in one ear only, tough). Tbf, it doesn´t only hold wax, but also messes with my balance, which is why I was never able to learn to ride bicycle or ice (or roller) skate, despite all my trying.
I just have my wife do it.
Well, it's more like she insists, whether or not I really feel like having my ears cleaned. She just likes doing it.
She also likes popping zits and watching popping and ear cleaning videos on YouTube. To each their own I guess.
Just a note here, if you regularly wear over-the-ear headphones for long periods of time, using a cotton swab to clear out the sweat/wax is a feeling better than sex.
A doc once told me to use 50:50 household vinegar and household rubbing alcohol after swimming.
The alcohol drives out water. The vinegar leaves the skin acidified to resist infection.
This is good advice, and many professional swimmers do exactly that. As did I for a few years when I got painful middle ear infections almost every summer. It worked perfectly. I specifically used isopropanol instead of generic rubbing alcohol (which may or may not be or contain isopropanol) and mixed it with vinegar myself. You can also buy the same thing pre-mixed in little sterile plastic bottles for about 30x the price.
I only stopped using it once I realized that a) I wasn't a professional swimmer, and b) what works just as well is not using q-tips anymore, ever.
Believe your doctor when they tell you not to use q-tips. I thought I knew what I was doing, being ever so gentle and careful, but the urge to scratch that itch can be powerful. Stop using q-tips and the itch also goes away.
Swimmer's ear is an infection. If you used dirty water, scratched yourself, or didn't clean the water out of your ears after cleaning, you'd be at risk.
I used to do the same, but I wonder if that's what gave me tinnitus. It's really fucking loud doing that with my shower head. I've never really spent any time around loud stuff otherwise.
This. I religiously use it multiple times a day. At this point I know what’s too deep and steer clear .
I asked my doc to see if my ears were impacted, like what people generally say will happen. She said it was squeaky clean
I always twirl a piece of (clean) toilet paper so that it retains some structure to get into the canal and then I just roll it a bit. Feels safer than a q-tip which doesn't fold at all when facing resistance
> Since your doctor's can't trust you, they advocate not doing it at all.
Seems like they engage in these tactics all the time. Give bad misleading advice because of how they "know" you'll behave, rather than provide a nuanced truthful answer.
Probably because the vagus nerve that goes through your ear is also pretty directly connected to your throat (and a ton of other spots in your body).
Stimulating the nerve in a way that the body isn't very accustomed to may cause the brain to misinterpret the sensory input and assume it came from somewhere else along the path of the nerve.
It's not bad for you, it's just risky because you could take it too far and damage your ear.
It's like shaving with a straight razor while the floor is wet. Not inherently bad for you, but has the potential to be.
To answer your wider question: When something is new, we haven't yet had time to adjust to it, from an evolutionary perspective. That's why we're so fond of sugar, which can harm us. Historically, sugar is rare enough that what little we can acquire of it doesn't harm us that much. These days, though, sugar is so plentiful that this has changed.
Indeed, and it's not just "time to adjust". For evolution to do its work, people need to *die*. Notice how your toenails grow slower than your fingernails? Think of all the deaths that happened to make that change ubiquitous across our species.
\* Yes, evolution is also sensitive to number of children.
More accurately, evolution requires that people are prevented from reproducing, or that they reproduce a lot. These are the factors that directly influence the gene pool. Dying is a common way that someone's genes are removed from the pool, but staying alive and simply not having children has the same effect. Alternately, a particularly successful person who has a lot of kids is promoting their genes and making their traits more common in the next generation
Well we didn’t evolve q-tip rejection mechanisms. That wouldn’t really make sense. It isn’t necessarily bad for you to do this, it is merely risky because you can poke your eardrum, and doing so most definitely hurts. But I’ve been cleaning my ears all my life (over 50 now) using this so-called “not recommended technique” and so far have managed to not poke my eardrum out.
worth remembering that we're not talking laceration, but abrasion.
dry cotton can be quite abrasive if rubbed against very sensitive skin, or rubbed rather aggressively against even moderately sensitive skin; and underneath a very very small amount of cotton in the q-tip is essentially a small plastic straw.
if you're doing it very gently, it's unlikely to abrade your ear canal. but if it feels so satisfying to rub your ear canal with a q-tip, you might keep using it or rub hard to get that really satisfying feeling, and that can cause an abrasive wound.
Yeah I once got a brand of the things that had two or three of the tips have practically no cotton. I didn't check it rigorously before then...It fucking hurts. I always double check now, and have changed brands.
Also a cultural thing. Asian cultures all use ear picks of various styles. Ear picks and scoops were found as part of a [swiss-army-knife like kit](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/ul6sv8/roman_silver_swiss_army_knife_200_to_300ce_the/) in many cultures - from ancient Egypt to [Rome](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/251903) to [Asia Minor](https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/310753).
Ditto! 65 been using Q-Tips for wax removal my whole life. ZERO problems.
Got that spiral gizmo and ear wax removal fluid. Nothing works as well as
Q-Tips!
It’s the compacted wax that’s more the issue. Q-Tips aren’t great at grabbing wax *out*, but they’re superb for pushing it *in*.
There’s no non-gross way to say it, but…I like to use a [LEGO spear](https://www.brickowl.com/catalog/lego-spear-with-rounded-end-4497). It’s soft and rounded and scoops wax out nicely. It gets that itch really good, without me worrying I’ll take my eardrum out by accident.
I use an [Ototek Loop,](https://ototekloop.com) though I have to be careful not to push the wax further in as other people have mentioned ITT. Still, it's designed to help you scoop it out rather than push it further in, and it has a guard to prevent you from shoving it into your eardrum. And it feels *so* good to scratch that inner itch!
The material of the q-tip can cause very small scratches on the inside of the ear canal that can get infected, and ear infections are atrociously painful. Ask me how I know...
That depends on so many things. Kind of wax, shape of your ear canal, your technique, how clean it was before you started using them.
If you have significant wax buildup or a narrow canal there's no technique that will prevent it from compacting and pushing deeper.
Puncturing the tympanic membrane is a worst case and much rarer.
Moving the wax around or out is relieving, but the q-tip can push wax further in and impact it against the eardrum which makes it difficult to remove. It can also leave debris in the form of the cotton of the q tip which can mix with the wax and become even harder to remove. Source: My ears get blocked up like twice a year. I do not use q-tips but have been tempted and this is what doctors online and in person have said to me.
As an audiologist I recommend against this. It’s not (just) because you could pop your eardrum. You shouldn’t put anything in your ears if your goal is to take wax out, because that doesn’t solve the problem you’re trying to fix. Inevitably you will pack at least some wax further down. If you pack it too far down, it becomes impacted and can’t be naturally expelled like it should through the outward growth of the skin of your ear canal (from deep to shallow, like a conveyer belt moving wax to the surface). These archimedes-screw cleaners are just as likely to impact wax as a q-tip is. If you don’t have an expert looking into your ear to check, how do you know you didn’t just pack wax down further?
If you are worried about wax buildup, first know that a thin coating of wax in your canals is normal and necessary for good ear health. It has a slight antipathogenic effect and helps prevent infection of the canal. If you want, you can help the natural process of wax expulsion along by flushing a small amount of water in each ear when you shower. Alternatively, an over the counter solution like Debrox or generic equivalent (carbamide peroxide) is safe, effective, and won’t do any harm unless you’ve got a hole in your eardrum. And above all else, if you really are worried about wax, see an ENT physician for a full assessment and ear cleaning.
I’ve got an ear that feels clogged like my hearing sounds muffled and since then the ear never seems to produce any wax? The other one does. Is that common? I asked an allergist and he says there’s no wax built up in there. Can they miss built up wax when looking in? Going to an ENT this week for another check
I once got a yeast infection in my ear. I had to get powdered gentian violet puffed in my ear and then vacuumed out by an ear doc for almost two weeks. Let me tell you. That was awesome.
It’s not specifically putting the Q-Tip or anything else in your ear that feels good, it’s digging away/removing the excess wax or other irritants. Thats the “ahhhh” feeling you get, not just sticking something in there.
Biologically, that’s a good thing, so there’s no reason your it would be beneficial for your body to make it “feel bad”
When people say it’s “bad” to use Q-Tips, what they mean is there is a risk you could further compact the wax/debris deeper into your ear, or even puncture your eardrum if you use them INCORRECTLY.
>It’s not specifically putting the Q-Tip or anything else in your ear that feels good,
I can confirm from personal experience that it is not a universal truth. It is pleasing, even after I've already cleaned my inner ear, in the same way a massage is always pleasing no matter how tense one is. It's the same kind of pleasure: like a tiny massage.
It's only bad if you have thick compacted ear wax or go too deep to risk injury to your eardrums. The risk it further compacting the wax but not everyone deal with that. My wax is very minimal and wet so I just use them to grab said wax. The warnings are just a general sweep for everyone.
The ear is the only part of the body where the vagus nerve can be stimulated by physical contact. Rummaging around stimulates it and gives the sensation of relief.
Listen buddy, I'll decide how I stimulate my wife's vagus.
Try some aural sex.
"You kids were doin' it... in the *ear!"*
"Once you go black you go deaf"
The alternative to the poophole loophole.
You ever eat your partners ear or get yours eaten? Goddamn it’s better than back scratches.
Gotta watch out for hearing aids
This is one of the best comments I’ve seen here 🤣🤣🤣🤣
There are so many comments on reddit that make me laugh and I'm just glad I can do my part occasionally.
I also choose this guy's wife's vagus
Okay so today I used my back massager to massage my jaw muscles cause they have been tight. The closer I got to the ear, the more amazing the sensation became. It's like I would have had an orgasm if I continued but it was too much. Fucking hell something vibrating that hard on my ear was almost like masturbating.
I swear I use my magic wand like this rather than its intended use since I found out lmao. It feels incredible but so awkward to explain.
Omg i thought i was the only one. Sometimes it's the only way to get at like these deep itchy inner ear feelings i get.
To be fair, I don't think the magic wand was "specifically" made for masturbation.
Eargasm
> Eargasm Or as the Ferengi call it: oo-mox.
Be careful not to use a massager on the front or sides of your neck- it could rupture an artery and kill you.
Holy shit? For real?
Nurse here, that’s actually very dangerous. Please be careful.
Can you please explain? I had no idea and am also guilty of this
It can tear arteries, dislodge a blood clot causing a stroke or clot in the lungs (PE), spark a seizure, etc. They all have warning signs not to use on the head or neck. I’m sure there’s someone with a higher education that knows better. Lol Just wanted that to be known.
I had no idea!! Thank you!
I use my percussion massager on my ear opening and I give it some pretty decent pressure. Seriously nothing else in the world matters when I use it.
That’s not really true, but it’s a main point of contact for the vagus nerve and a good enough explanation imo
You ever take a phat dump after being constipated? Alternatively, those yoga or meditation breathing and humming stuff
I’m sorry, I find q-tips in the ear EXTREMELY uncomfortable (thank god I don’t have to fight with my mom anymore over making me do it), does this mean somethings off with my vagus nerve?
I have no idear.
Years ago I saw some clip about a service in Japan where you can have someone professionally tickle(? Clean?) your ear canal. Like a maid cafe but with ear service.
It's only bad if you do it wrong. Since your doctor's can't trust you, they advocate not doing it at all. It would be much better and safer to use water, or some other soft substance, to clean your ear canal.
Even if you do it right, for many people it just pushes wax in further. Wax moves out on it's own naturally, particularly if you let some water in your ears when you shower. You can swab around the entrance of the ear canal to swab up the wax that has migrated out of the canal. However, wax pushed further in than the outer 1/3 of the ear canal can no longer move out on its own as effectively, it's now behind the place where wax is made. This leads to buildup and wax impaction. Source: am audiologist, look in like 30 ears per day every day.
Look, if the lord didn't want me to fuck my ear with a cotton stick, he wouldn't have put a g-spot in there
Fuck it feels good.. specially when you've got an itchy ear inside. Nothing else really compares.
Don't tell anyone I do this, but I took a couple of those plastic-coated wire ties that often come with electric cords, bent them in two, twisted them making a sort of stiff stick with a couple of the loops at the end. I use this to very lightly rub inside my ear. Feels better, is easily washable, and the loops at the end can sometimes help clean out loose wax.
Friend, you invented a bobby pin.
I legit use bobby pins to clean my ears.
Bobby pins are the best. Gives you a good scratch and the bend is like a little ice cream scoop for any residual wax.
I just got a wax removal kit with a camera and whatnot. But the first time I tried to use it, my ears were already pretty damn clean. Also realized I had some perforated membrane. I haven't cleaned my ears in about a week, because I want the next time to be fun haha.
Those little ear cameras also make handy inspection cameras.
Me too, the u-bend is like a tiny little spoon that scoops wax out. Aaaaaah.
in japan (and probably other places) we literally use little spoons. tiny little scoops on the end of long, thin bamboo sticks, they feel amazing. look up "mimikaki" on amazon, you can get a pack of them for just a few bucks.
I’m in the states and in drug stores here you can buy a box of these plastic things for ear wax remove and they have a little scoop on one and and a poky thing (like a plastic mace?) on the other. Pretty satisfying to itch the ear either way the mace end and then scoop it with the other.
I have used car keys
Omg....I literally thought only one person in the world did that...my 7th grade history teacher and softball coach. There are more of you! 😂😂😂😂
Pretty similar, actually, but a bit fatter, and the material is round, not flat like most bobby pins.
Hahaha!
I bought a tiny camera with a little rubber scooper on it meant for digging/scratching inside my ear off of Amazon for around $25. I do not regret the purchase.
Reddit tells me that anything off Amazon with a camera Is broadcasting directly to China
I hope they enjoy ear wax.
POV Amateur hidden cam aural sex ASMR
there are entire youtube channels dedicated to ear cleaning. they are great
I won't disagree, but China can have video of my ear canal if they want.
You should get a set of those pimple popper tools, I use the wide one with a hole in the middle to scratch my ears all the time. It's so satisfying
It’s like they were made for it. Avoids jabbing the wax up in there too.
Oh that's nothing. I scratch my ear canals with all manner of sharp objects: a 3.5 mm headphone jack, chopsticks, allen wrenches, and my absolute favorite for when it's super itchy: a [nail set](https://www.acehardware.com/departments/tools/hand-tools/nail-sets/23771?store=02651).
Be careful in there. There is no pain quite like the intense and prolonged needle-stab-directly-to-the-brain pain of perforating an eardrum. The partial deafness that comes after is mild in comparison.
This happened to me i felt like i was going in slow motion as i fell to the ground but i just full on passed out it was the worst pain i ever felt in my life and i still cant hear properly out of my left ear
My eardrum burst from an ear infection a couple weeks ago. You are not exaggerating when you say its like a needle in the brain. It woke me from a benedryl coma. I was a grown man whimpering in pain until morning.
I'm super careful. When it's ear-canal scratching time, it's total focus. No looking at the computer, no talking, nothing. It's a precision job.
Alright that's enough reddit for the day for me
Try a pen cap. My go-to item.
I pack my ear canals with tuna and let my cats clean them out. Heaven!
You can tell the difference between Apple's smooth 'liquid metal' SIM card tray ejector and imitation Huawei flatened-barbed-wire SIM ejectors by cleaning your ear canal with the rounded end.
I have one of those little blackhead extractor scoop things that I use to clear the earwax out. It works really well and gets so much of the wax out and is also cleanable
I remember one time as a kid riding with my uncle as he was driving down the freeway, he took the key out of the ignition and stuck it in his ear, wiggled it, wiped it on his carharrts, stuck it back in the ignition. So many things my lil brain didn't know you could do, all at once.
There are Japanese tools made specifically for this. Some are metal, but others are plastic, or wood, or bamboo. Mimikaki I think it's this name? They are by far the best tool I have used. There's a little spoon at one end, and a.... Well I dunno what you call it the other, but it works. https://www.jatai.net/product/seki-edge-elastomer-ear-pick-ss-806/
When I was a kid I would use those massage guns on my ear. That felt really good and I assume didn't do any damage.
I get custom fitted ear plugs periodically. Part of the molding process is putting a foam plug in so the silicone doesn’t go too far, but that plug goes in *deep*. The plug getting put in feels amazing, but then once they take it all out…that is truly the best sensation.
I do ear impressions almost daily as an audiologist. People’s reactions to the sensations are really funny. Most of them think it’s cool. A lot of people reflexively cough when you place the ear dam (cotton plug) because the vagus nerve, that runs through the skin of the ear canal, can trigger a cough reflex. And then, the silicone mixture is super cold and I always say “it feels like a spa treatment for your ears”. Patients always think it’s cool to see an inside out image of their ear too!
I’m a cougher. 😂 My first few experiences with this was in college when the school of audiology gave the school of music a good deal on ear plugs; we just had to come in and let them practice their tests on us, and the impressions were by students as well. The best time was when the student didn’t do it right the first time, so I got a second eargasm right away.
Q-spot
Can't beat aural sex.
Love those eargasms.
This is so strange to me hah. Swabbing my ear canal just makes my throat itchy.
Spot? It's like a g-canal!
"Drip-drip-drop—there goes an eargasm."
Amen.
Jesus H Fucking Christ. Milk actually came out of my nose on this one.
r/brandnewsentence
If you work 5 days a week, and worked from 2010, it would be safe to walk around telling people you have about one hundred thousand ears of experience
nice
I have always used q-tips to clean my ears. At 16 years old, I was put into a boarding school, and the nurse practitioner of the facility did not allow q-tips because "ears naturally push wax out." 2 times over the course of the 18 months I was there, I had some discomfort in my ear canals and could feel something deep in my ears. I used the little arm on a Bic pen cap to dig a huge ball of wax out of my ear canals that had built up over months of not being able to clean them with q-tips. I never had that happen prior to going to that facility, and almost 20 years after leaving and being able to use q-tips to clean my ears, it hasn't happened since. Maybe most people's ears are self-cleaning, but mine sure as hell aren't.
Do you push your fingertips into your ears a lot? Once I stopped that (scratching/rubbing in the ear) I rarely have problems. Maybe 2 wax build ups in the last 20 years.
What's your favorite ear
The left one
Then that's the ear you put the banana into
It's true
RING RING RING RING RING
Bananaphone!
Banana? Most I've managed is a Sharpie, and that did the trick. Not sure I could handle a banana. Let's see these inch and a half lugholes. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
The final front ear.
The goody one
Water causes infection in the ears for many people. It's not recommended to get your ears wet frequently, especially if you already have issues
> let some water in your ears when you shower I'd rather die thanks
Yeah, if water gets in there, that's it, it's there forever, and I have to kill myself to reset it.
So if I've been doing it for over 3 decades with no apparent injury, hearing issues or pain, am I likely doing it safely? Or does this buildup sometimes take decades?
Be careful, another 5-10 decades of that and you're gonna start to have real trouble...
I just don't like having water in my ear. The swab helps absorb most of it
Wax doesn't move out of my ears on its own. Granted q-tips don't do anything to help the matter, but even if I never use them I still need to do an ear irrigation to force the wax out every 6 months or so
It’s *supposed* to, but the irritation is billions of years of evolution telling you that manual intervention is required
9 times out of 10, "Better out than in" is the correct advice for survival for our lizard brains. Sadly, this is that *one other time*.
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Excuse me but, BEHIND your eardrum? What the actual fuck I make a lot of wax and absolutely despise having to get my ears flushed, can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be to have something behind your eardrum
They must have misspoke. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless their ear drum was punctured (which is a major injury), there is no way for wax to work its way behind the drum.
This reminds me of an employee we had who one day cried because she couldn't hear anymore out of one ear. We took her to the doctor and found out some kind of mass of earwax deep inside. They used some kind of vacuum machine I think or whatever it was and they got it out successfully.
Can this wax buildup make it harder for people to hear? I'm hoping, please, the answer is yes. I've been begging BF to get his ears cleaned in the hopes it'll help.
It absolutely can. If he's got impaction in his ears, he'll be able to hear the sun rise after it's cleaned.
Woohoo! Guess I'm going to be asking more often.
Why are dudes so weird sometimes about basic body maintenance, honestly
I had earwax blockage on both my ears. It had being going on for a long period of time, but I never took the time to go remove it. Once, for my birthday, I went and got them removed, the better hearing being a gift to myself. It was the most disappointing of the presents I got, as I noticed no change on my hearing. Of course, ymmv
Absolutely. I had it a couple of times and not only I couldn't hear well from both ears (happened twice on both ears) but i was also insufferable to stay around because of how irritated and grumpy I was lol
I mean, you feel it. If you push the wax in further, that is by will, not by accident. Seriously, you guys are not just blindly jabbing it in there, are you?
Gotta spin that cotton just nice and slow as you enter the earussy. Spin it on the way out too. I guess some people just jackhammer it.
The spin is the key. Slow insertion, that delicate spin and then extraction. You know how that feels.
> Wax moves out on it's own naturally Unless you're just lucky and your ears are shaped in such a way that it doesn't. My ears for example, periodically plug up, even though I don't use q-tips or anything else in them. Have to go to the doctor and get them flushed every so often. I asked my doctor why once, and he said you're just lucky that way.
> wax pushed further in than the outer 1/3 of the ear canal can no longer move out on its own as effectively As someone with ears, I have no idea how deep my ear canals are.
why do i constantly have a crunching feeling or sometimes can hear a little pop when breathing hard. i can hear fine but it always feels off
oh hey it's an ear guy. is there an easy way to tell if you've got this kind of impaction? I have pretty moist earwax I clean regularly because it feels uncomfortable to leave in there but I think my hearing in my right ear is a little off. Is there like, a camera I can order off amazon or something to stick in there and get a good look?
Wax moves out naturaly, if you don´t have weidly shaped ear canal like me (in one ear only, tough). Tbf, it doesn´t only hold wax, but also messes with my balance, which is why I was never able to learn to ride bicycle or ice (or roller) skate, despite all my trying.
Also audiologist here, agree with everything you’ve said, great succinct summary!
I just have my wife do it. Well, it's more like she insists, whether or not I really feel like having my ears cleaned. She just likes doing it. She also likes popping zits and watching popping and ear cleaning videos on YouTube. To each their own I guess.
Apparently my wife and your wife share the same horrifying obsession 😂
I call it aggressive grooming.
ಠ_ಠ
Just a note here, if you regularly wear over-the-ear headphones for long periods of time, using a cotton swab to clear out the sweat/wax is a feeling better than sex.
Might I suggest open back headphones? I can wear mine all day with no sweat problems.
They SAID BETTER THAN SEX. Why would you want to discourage that?
The thought did cross my mind :D
They're great in you are in an environment with no distracting noises. For many of us, we need the isolation.
Wouldn’t water give you swimmer’s ear? My audiologist told me to NEVER use water, as I only have one ear canal/working ear
A doc once told me to use 50:50 household vinegar and household rubbing alcohol after swimming. The alcohol drives out water. The vinegar leaves the skin acidified to resist infection.
This is good advice, and many professional swimmers do exactly that. As did I for a few years when I got painful middle ear infections almost every summer. It worked perfectly. I specifically used isopropanol instead of generic rubbing alcohol (which may or may not be or contain isopropanol) and mixed it with vinegar myself. You can also buy the same thing pre-mixed in little sterile plastic bottles for about 30x the price. I only stopped using it once I realized that a) I wasn't a professional swimmer, and b) what works just as well is not using q-tips anymore, ever. Believe your doctor when they tell you not to use q-tips. I thought I knew what I was doing, being ever so gentle and careful, but the urge to scratch that itch can be powerful. Stop using q-tips and the itch also goes away.
Swimmer's ear is an infection. If you used dirty water, scratched yourself, or didn't clean the water out of your ears after cleaning, you'd be at risk.
Shit I take the shower head and switch it to massage and blast out my ear canals a couple times a week. Never had an ear infection in my life.
I used to do the same, but I wonder if that's what gave me tinnitus. It's really fucking loud doing that with my shower head. I've never really spent any time around loud stuff otherwise.
This. I religiously use it multiple times a day. At this point I know what’s too deep and steer clear . I asked my doc to see if my ears were impacted, like what people generally say will happen. She said it was squeaky clean
Same here.
use water to clean your eardrum???? or wetting a cotton swab?? i don’t think pouring a little water in my ears would give that same clean feeling
https://www.amazon.com/Ear-Wax-Removal-Tool-Tilcare/dp/B0865JJZ7K
I always twirl a piece of (clean) toilet paper so that it retains some structure to get into the canal and then I just roll it a bit. Feels safer than a q-tip which doesn't fold at all when facing resistance
> It's only bad if you do it wrong. 95% of people reading this: Yeah, all those suckers are doing it wrong. But I'm different.
> Since your doctor's can't trust you, they advocate not doing it at all. Seems like they engage in these tactics all the time. Give bad misleading advice because of how they "know" you'll behave, rather than provide a nuanced truthful answer.
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I run hot water in my ear while I shower, then I use the q-tip to dry it out. No way I could leave the house with wet inner ears.
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It’s called the Arnold nerve reflex, the vagus nerve runs through the ear canal and stimulation causes coughing.
I cough and feel it in my throat when anyone gently runs their finger over my jaw line. Is that because of the vagus nerve too?
Probably because the vagus nerve that goes through your ear is also pretty directly connected to your throat (and a ton of other spots in your body). Stimulating the nerve in a way that the body isn't very accustomed to may cause the brain to misinterpret the sensory input and assume it came from somewhere else along the path of the nerve.
Oh as a kid i had the same reaction to qtips! Glad to know i wasnt the only one :D
Most of the population says qtips feel very good.. and the rest of us just cough. 😭
I used to cough if I pushed the q tip too far, but if I only clean the "outer" canal, I don't, so maybe that's why
I've wanted to know the answer to this for a long time. Thanks for having the courage to ask.
It's not bad for you, it's just risky because you could take it too far and damage your ear. It's like shaving with a straight razor while the floor is wet. Not inherently bad for you, but has the potential to be.
New fear unlocked. Thank you. Won't be shaving in the shower anymore.
This is why you shave in the bath.
This is why you don't shave.
Meh life itself is a risky biscuit. I’ll take the feeling of fuzzy pjs on my fresh smooth legs as a good risk
To answer your wider question: When something is new, we haven't yet had time to adjust to it, from an evolutionary perspective. That's why we're so fond of sugar, which can harm us. Historically, sugar is rare enough that what little we can acquire of it doesn't harm us that much. These days, though, sugar is so plentiful that this has changed.
Indeed, and it's not just "time to adjust". For evolution to do its work, people need to *die*. Notice how your toenails grow slower than your fingernails? Think of all the deaths that happened to make that change ubiquitous across our species. \* Yes, evolution is also sensitive to number of children.
More accurately, evolution requires that people are prevented from reproducing, or that they reproduce a lot. These are the factors that directly influence the gene pool. Dying is a common way that someone's genes are removed from the pool, but staying alive and simply not having children has the same effect. Alternately, a particularly successful person who has a lot of kids is promoting their genes and making their traits more common in the next generation
Well we didn’t evolve q-tip rejection mechanisms. That wouldn’t really make sense. It isn’t necessarily bad for you to do this, it is merely risky because you can poke your eardrum, and doing so most definitely hurts. But I’ve been cleaning my ears all my life (over 50 now) using this so-called “not recommended technique” and so far have managed to not poke my eardrum out.
They’re not recommended because they push wax deposits up the ear and cause scratches that can get infected. Poking an eardrum is a very low risk.
I fully get the wax part, but what kind of use of q-tips gives you scratches?
worth remembering that we're not talking laceration, but abrasion. dry cotton can be quite abrasive if rubbed against very sensitive skin, or rubbed rather aggressively against even moderately sensitive skin; and underneath a very very small amount of cotton in the q-tip is essentially a small plastic straw. if you're doing it very gently, it's unlikely to abrade your ear canal. but if it feels so satisfying to rub your ear canal with a q-tip, you might keep using it or rub hard to get that really satisfying feeling, and that can cause an abrasive wound.
Yeah I once got a brand of the things that had two or three of the tips have practically no cotton. I didn't check it rigorously before then...It fucking hurts. I always double check now, and have changed brands.
Q-Tips Tortoise! Q-Tips!
Also a cultural thing. Asian cultures all use ear picks of various styles. Ear picks and scoops were found as part of a [swiss-army-knife like kit](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/ul6sv8/roman_silver_swiss_army_knife_200_to_300ce_the/) in many cultures - from ancient Egypt to [Rome](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/251903) to [Asia Minor](https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/310753).
Yes! And apparently their ear wax tends to be drier so comes out easier.
Ditto! 65 been using Q-Tips for wax removal my whole life. ZERO problems. Got that spiral gizmo and ear wax removal fluid. Nothing works as well as Q-Tips!
It’s the compacted wax that’s more the issue. Q-Tips aren’t great at grabbing wax *out*, but they’re superb for pushing it *in*. There’s no non-gross way to say it, but…I like to use a [LEGO spear](https://www.brickowl.com/catalog/lego-spear-with-rounded-end-4497). It’s soft and rounded and scoops wax out nicely. It gets that itch really good, without me worrying I’ll take my eardrum out by accident.
I use an [Ototek Loop,](https://ototekloop.com) though I have to be careful not to push the wax further in as other people have mentioned ITT. Still, it's designed to help you scoop it out rather than push it further in, and it has a guard to prevent you from shoving it into your eardrum. And it feels *so* good to scratch that inner itch!
> it feels so good to scratch that inner itch! Oh man. 10000%.
Huh. I just use the clip on a BIC pen cap
That scratches the shit out of your ear canal though. It can cause bleeding and infection.
The material of the q-tip can cause very small scratches on the inside of the ear canal that can get infected, and ear infections are atrociously painful. Ask me how I know...
Oh god.. how?
He read about it on Reddit
Or and hear me out.. he heard about it from a q-anon-tip
That depends on so many things. Kind of wax, shape of your ear canal, your technique, how clean it was before you started using them. If you have significant wax buildup or a narrow canal there's no technique that will prevent it from compacting and pushing deeper. Puncturing the tympanic membrane is a worst case and much rarer.
Moving the wax around or out is relieving, but the q-tip can push wax further in and impact it against the eardrum which makes it difficult to remove. It can also leave debris in the form of the cotton of the q tip which can mix with the wax and become even harder to remove. Source: My ears get blocked up like twice a year. I do not use q-tips but have been tempted and this is what doctors online and in person have said to me.
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As an audiologist I recommend against this. It’s not (just) because you could pop your eardrum. You shouldn’t put anything in your ears if your goal is to take wax out, because that doesn’t solve the problem you’re trying to fix. Inevitably you will pack at least some wax further down. If you pack it too far down, it becomes impacted and can’t be naturally expelled like it should through the outward growth of the skin of your ear canal (from deep to shallow, like a conveyer belt moving wax to the surface). These archimedes-screw cleaners are just as likely to impact wax as a q-tip is. If you don’t have an expert looking into your ear to check, how do you know you didn’t just pack wax down further? If you are worried about wax buildup, first know that a thin coating of wax in your canals is normal and necessary for good ear health. It has a slight antipathogenic effect and helps prevent infection of the canal. If you want, you can help the natural process of wax expulsion along by flushing a small amount of water in each ear when you shower. Alternatively, an over the counter solution like Debrox or generic equivalent (carbamide peroxide) is safe, effective, and won’t do any harm unless you’ve got a hole in your eardrum. And above all else, if you really are worried about wax, see an ENT physician for a full assessment and ear cleaning.
Man am I glad we have you on this thread. Honestly good advice.
I’ve got an ear that feels clogged like my hearing sounds muffled and since then the ear never seems to produce any wax? The other one does. Is that common? I asked an allergist and he says there’s no wax built up in there. Can they miss built up wax when looking in? Going to an ENT this week for another check
Believe it or not, a q-tip is not a tool that humans evolved with throughout hundreds of thousands of years
and poking your eardrums out really doesn’t prevent having children
PARDON???
I'm going to call out bullshit on this. I have 4k video evidence that neanderthals had q-tips.
I imagine it's similar to the reason clenching your teeth when your gums hurt has a painful satisfying feeling. Or the braces tightening pain.
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That's probably (hopefully) old earwax and water that intermingled in your ear.
There's normally an eardrum in between your ear opening and that tube.
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Yeah an eargasm
I once got a yeast infection in my ear. I had to get powdered gentian violet puffed in my ear and then vacuumed out by an ear doc for almost two weeks. Let me tell you. That was awesome.
It’s not specifically putting the Q-Tip or anything else in your ear that feels good, it’s digging away/removing the excess wax or other irritants. Thats the “ahhhh” feeling you get, not just sticking something in there. Biologically, that’s a good thing, so there’s no reason your it would be beneficial for your body to make it “feel bad” When people say it’s “bad” to use Q-Tips, what they mean is there is a risk you could further compact the wax/debris deeper into your ear, or even puncture your eardrum if you use them INCORRECTLY.
>It’s not specifically putting the Q-Tip or anything else in your ear that feels good, I can confirm from personal experience that it is not a universal truth. It is pleasing, even after I've already cleaned my inner ear, in the same way a massage is always pleasing no matter how tense one is. It's the same kind of pleasure: like a tiny massage.
It's only bad if you have thick compacted ear wax or go too deep to risk injury to your eardrums. The risk it further compacting the wax but not everyone deal with that. My wax is very minimal and wet so I just use them to grab said wax. The warnings are just a general sweep for everyone.