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Comment by lovehashbrowns | Hacker News Reader

I stopped using q-tips because after like 20-something years of using q-tips safely, it took one bad left-handed cleaning job to hurt my ear. I think I mostly got lucky. I went in too far with my non-dominant hand and caused some sharp pain on what is probably my ear drum. No hearing loss, nothing major, but it was pretty painful and more than enough to get me to stop. I was just like the author! I was like there's no way this can be bad as long as you don't go in too deep.

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This is quite salient, two days ago I did the same thing. Left non dominate hand with a q-tip, no pain at all though really. I don't think i went too overly deep but the entire left side of my has felt blocked since, this article is making me think maybe I pushed the wax deeper and might have a blockage? Is this something you would consult a doctor over or does it usually work itself out?

Your local drug store has cleaner that can sit in your ear and dissolve ear wax, along with a special ear pick. In my experience it works well, especially if you have someone to do the awkward scooping after. YMMV if it works better than hydrogen peroxide and a qtip

It’s really not a big deal! It might work itself out over time but you can get one of those ear wax cleaning kits. In my uneducated experience, the formulation they come with doesn’t help a whole ton, but the key part is the rubber bulb you get to flush water into your ear. You’re gonna want to follow the kit’s instructions around safety, but it’s overall pretty easy and doesn’t take too long to clear up some fairly significant blockage.

When I was in school, there was a guy with a large over-ear hearing aid in one of his ears. I asked him about it.

He said he was cleaning his ear one day with a q-tip. His sister snuck up behind him with an aired up paper bag and popped it. "BOO!" He jumped and smashed the q-tip into his ear.

I did the same thing recently, after many decades of no accident. I woke up that night with blood dripping out of my ear. I taped a cotton ball to the outside of my ear, to prevent bedding from getting bloody. Next morning, I pulled the cotton ball off and it has a 1 in "blood worm" (that's what I'm calling it) attached. I called my PCP. It took 6 weeks for the last of the dried blood to fall out of my ear and for it to feel normal.

I am extremely careful now when I use q tips.

Mine was when the tip of one snapped off one day with no warning. Normally they bend a fair bit, maybe threaten to break. This one just broke and getting it out was very clearly one of those things where it could easily go wrong and become a real problem. Like others were saying my ears adjusted after a few months of crustiness and now it's all pretty reasonable in there.

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