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Comment by handol | Hacker News Reader

> for what purpose do they serve?

It feels good to scoop the goop out of your ears after a hot shower.

I'm someone who naturally produces a lot of ear wax. I don't think people really appreciate just how unpleasant it is. After it builds up past a certain point, sounds become distorted and it's hard to decode individual words. It can often be extremely itching and irritating.

I think those of us with hearing loss can appreciate the unpleasantness pretty well.

Use an ear syringe. So much more effective and, to my knowledge, no one has raised serious safety concerns.

Exactly this. Use a syringe and inject hot (but not too hot) water into your ear with your head tilted. Do this a couple of times. Then you should use a paper tissue and your finger to get it out what you can. Repeat.

I dunno if this is a good advice, but it worked every time I got excessive build-up.

Some people just tilt their head to the right side in case it is their right ear and aim the shower head at their ear for some time. Sometimes it can just "fall out" (really, seen it happen!). Regardless, I just do the syringe one and paper tissue + finger.

I recommend one of these:

https://earclear.com/

I'm sorry, but $59 for a plastic syringe with a crooked tip?

They last forever, and they work much better than anything else on the market. Worth every penny.

Thank you for this recommendation. My ears have been acting up again, so I ordered this as soon as I saw your comment. It took a couple showers, but I can hear again! This thing works.

When i was young my doctor would repeatedly sternly talk to my mother that she must clean my ears out, as the doctor thought she was ignoring me and/or my ears.

She cleaned them regularly. I was a ear wax machine, to an absurd degree.

Luckily as an adult they're pretty normal...i assume. But i still clean them after i get out of the shower since i dislike the feeling of water in my ears.

I absolutely agree to that. However, the boxes of all brands I've seen state to not use inside the ear. I skull-fuck myself almost daily (unless I run out) and my doctor merely praises me for having such clean ears. Even if I go weeks without using a Q-Tip in the ear, they still come out only barely dirty. I mostly just do it because it feels great. I can understand how if you have thick wax buildup it could be packing the wax deeper in, but for me that's not the case. When I insert the Q-Tip, I feel the cotton making direct contact with skin the whole way in.

I'm the same as you, but the past two three years, my ears dry from using a q-tip. I literally start to have cracked dry skin and bleeding in my ear canal from excessive q-tip usage and these days I can't even use them weekly without issues.

I have never felt the need to scoop anything out of my ears. And I don't see anything visible from the outside of the ear that would need scooping. I assume any wax further in the ear probably belongs there as defensive barrier.

Physiology varies quite a bit.

I never do either, until I grab a pair of in ear headphones and recoil in horror at the globs of ear wax that they yank out. I have actually killed apple earbuds like that from clogging up the mesh barriers with wax. Regular maintenance keeps that from happening.

You need rubbing alcohol - any Jesus ;D

Especially for users of in-ear speakers. Nasty as heck using them with dirty ears.

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