Earwax

Earwax

Earwax is a recycling center. Most of the time, your ears produce just enough protective wax to trap dust in your ear canal and move it to the ear opening. Then the wax and dust are bathed away whenever you wash around your ears.

But sometimes the wax gets all jammed up-which is uncomfortable, annoying and sometimes downright itchy. Not only that, wax-plugged ears are more susceptible to infection. So if you find yourself with too much wax, here's how to deal with it.

Irrigate earwax. "Gently irrigate your ear with body-temperature water," suggests Stephen P. Cass, M.D., assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Eye and Ear Institute of Pittsburgh.

To do it right, you'll need a rubber ear syringe (available at most pharmacies) and a sinkful of water. (If it's the correct temperature, it will feel neither warm nor cold when you dip your hand in.) Hold your head over the sink while you very gently squirt the water into your ear, letting water and wax run out into the sink. Be sure to dry the ear canal after washing. To do this, fill an eyedropper with rubbing alcohol and squeeze the alcohol into the ear. It will absorb moisture and dry the ear.

If you're prone to excess buildup of wax, use the syringe to irrigate your ears once or twice a month as a precaution, suggests Jerome C. Goldstein, M.D., executive vice president of the American Academy of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery in Alexandria, Virginia. (But you shouldn't squirt anything in your ear if you have any kind of eardrum damage-so check with your doctor first, and again if you feel any pain.)

Baby your ears. If the wax refuses to budge, you may need to soften it up before you irrigate. One way is to use baby oil, according to Anthony J. Yonkers, M.D., chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. "Warm up the oil to body temperature, then place a few drops into the ear twice a day. It will melt or soften the wax, and you can irrigate it out," Dr. Yonkers says.

Try peroxide. Another softening-up method: "Fill the ear with a dropperful of peroxide, and let it bubble and work for five minutes or so," suggests Dr. Goldstein. If you need to, put a piece of cotton in the opening of the ear canal, so you can sit up while the peroxide goes to work. Then flush it away with water.

Clear your canals with nonprescription treatments. Many over-the-counter earwax treatments, such as Murine and Debrox, are actually lubricant-based peroxide solutions. "They work, too," says Frank Marlowe, M.D., an otolaryngologist for the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Plus you get a side benefit from the lubricant: It relieves dry skin in the ear canal. (That dry skin can become enmeshed with wax, causing formation of a wax ball that blocks the ear canal.)

A stool softener might sit well with you. If you have impacted wax, try using Colace, a stool softener found in most drugstores, suggests Dr. Cass. Using an eyedropper, put a couple of drops of liquid Colace in each ear. You can leave it there from a few minutes to an hour or two (depending on how stubborn the wax is), then irrigate your ears with water.

Don't use a Pik or a poke. No matter how much earwax accumulates in your ears, don't be tempted to probe for it with paper clips, tweezers or any small object--including cotton-tipped swabs--warns Dr. Cass. You'll push wax farther into your ear, and you might scratch or damage an eardrum. And don't use a Water Pik-type device-that's for teeth only. If you're going to irrigate your ears, use only an ear syringe.