How bad is it that there was blood in my ear this morning?

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I'll stick with Q-tips.

[/ QUOTE ]
Really not smart. Here's a good article from Medscape:
Earwax: Should It Be Removed?

Also the Wikipedia article has some interesting details. For instance, I never knew that anthropologists used earwax to track human migratory patterns:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwax

[kipin]

[ QUOTE ]
I have narrow ear canals...and an overactive wax thingamawhat..So I have to clean them regularly...

...Up until about 3-4 yrs ago I seriously couldnt hear out of my one ear and blew it off as my mother has the same problem....figured hereditary...until one day I get to digging around with a paperclip or something (gross I know) and can feel like a release and suddenly its like the world got turned up to 11 on the dial...

...I had impacted wax which caused the hearing problem...I scooped out about 64 lbs of ear wax and it smelled god [censored] awful...even got a cleaning kit.....have gone back consistantly for cleanings and its amazing the amount of [censored] they pull out regularly...

...stop using Q Tips except to clean the outer ear...digging in the ear will cause severe problems

[/ QUOTE ]

Old OOT requests pics.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
I've used Q-tips my whole life and I've never had a problem with my ears. I think I had an ear infection when I was 6 or something. I do use perioxide every once in awhile though.

[/ QUOTE ]

Using q-tips was standard a generation or two back. Almost everybody used them all the time. Parents used them on themselves and all their kids.

Somehow they got by just fine.

The only bad thing I ever hard happening was one friend's kid got her elbow jammed when she was using a q-tip and it made her jam it in there really hard. I forget if the mom telling me this mentioned whether the ear drum broke or not, but I think it might have.

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]

The only bad thing I ever hard happening was one friend's kid got her elbow jammed when she was using a q-tip and it made her jam it in there really hard. I forget if the mom telling me this mentioned whether the ear drum broke or not, but I think it might have.

[/ QUOTE ]

A guy I knew in high school ruptured one of his eardrums in a Q-Tip accident when he slipped in a bathroom while cleaning his ears. Since then I've been pretty paranoid about standing/sitting still when cleaning my ears, and preferably not having people immediately around me.

[tuq]

Sorry if this is kind of a ghey bump, but I had this page up when I went out and didn't have time to comment.

If my Dr. is right, everyone who said to avoid Q-Tips is correct. About six weeks ago, I stuck a Q-Tip into my ear and felt blockage and I couldn't hear out of that ear very well.

I figgered it would clear up but several days later not only had that not happened, a whole series of events followed. I lost my equilibrium, I started to feel unwell, I couldn't function properly. Thinking it was an infection, I went to the doc only to find out I had no fever and he told me that Q-Tips are a heinous idea, I had simply jammed the wax into my eardrum to cause the blockage and the subsequent issues.

GA Avenue had the exact same solution as the doc - rinse your eardrum out while you shower. This sounds not nearly as effective as the Q-Tip solution, but he knows more than I do...

[hobbes9324]

Sigh.....the first part of being a good OOT doctor, or real doctor, for that matter, is to take a careful history.

The OP noted blood AFTER using the Q-tip. This would most likely indicate that he had some ear wax adhering to the canal tightly, and when the Q-tip detatched it, a bit of bleeding resulted. No big thing.

OTOH, bleeding spontaneously, as several posters noted, can be an indication of either an infection or a ruptured ear drum, and would benefit from seeing a real, as opposed to an OOT doctor.

Q-tips are considered by most MD's to be tools of the devil when it comes to ear cleaning - no matter how good it feels.

The amount of ear wax generated by people is extrememly variable, as is it's stickiness and overall creamy goodness - lots of people never have problems, and some are able to grow truly impressive ear boogers that we extract in the ED. Usually, these are some of our most grateful patients.

The OTC ear wax disolving agents are pretty good, and fairly idiot proof. I am suspicious about the ear wax candle strategy, but I don't want to raise the ire of anyone who thinks the american medical establisment is against all homeopathic/california/hippie remedies, so have at it and give us a trip report, if you like. I'll pass.

Incidental note - I believe it was Johnny Most, a well known broadcaster for the Celtics, who went to his MD complaining of loss of hearing in his right hear. He was worried he had had a stroke, or something similar. After a major struggle, an earwax-encrusted foam earplug was extracted, and his hearing was magically restored. It had, per the broadcaster, gone missing a couple of years prior.

Good luck, all......

MM MD

[KlumsySmurf]

I once stuck a rock in my ear and forgot about it.

I was in the 2nd grade, and had a small pebble from the playground that I was playing with. By playing with I mean sticking it in my ear and pulling it back out. It was fun.

I somehow put it in my ear and it got stuck there, and being the brilliant kid I was I forgot about it.

A few months later during a routine doctor visit it was pointed out that there was a rock in my ear. He used a bulb and some warm water to expel it, and I made up some story about how it must've fallen in there when I was sliding into 2nd base playing baseball. I don't think my doctor believed me.

I still have that rock.

I've never had ear problems. Put a pebble in your ear that is bleeding and it will make your ears healthy.

[Ortho]

[ QUOTE ]
Mad:

You can just rinse out the ear cannel every time you take a shower. Then use toilet paper to dry and clean out the area.

--GA

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I did this for years, and had to go to the doctor every six months to get the wax cleaned out b/c my ears would eventually become fully plugged. The nurse told me to rinse my ears out under the shower every time I went. A few years ago, a friend suggested to me that running water into your ears every day might actually cause your body to produce more ear wax. Anyway, I tried not washing them out as an experiment, and they haven't become plugged in almost 3 years. My own problems stopped when I stopped washing them out.

[Josey_Wales]

"...in the same left ear..."

lol

--The Outlaw