Ensure your ears are taken care of with these tips
Looking forward to your summer holiday? Dreaming of sunbathing with a good book in one hand and a cocktail in the other? But one thing you may have overlooked on your holiday checklist is the slightly less glamorous topic of ear wax.
“Ear wax absorbs water and then expands causing a blockage and hearing problems”, says Mary Kelly from the Clear Ear Clinic. “We see a lot of patients who jump into the pool on the first day of their holiday, which washes ear wax deep into the ear canal, and they then end up spending the rest of their precious holiday deaf or looking for a way or a person to remove the ear wax.”
Ear wax specialist Kelly is part of a team who remove more than 100 litres of ear wax every year. Here she gives her top tips to looking after your ears (and not ruining your holiday)
1.) “As a guide, never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ears”, warns Mary. This includes cotton buds, hair pins, pens, and pen tips.
“They may temporarily relieve the irritation but they actually only push the ear wax further into your ears.”
2.) If you suffer from ear pain when you're flying and you know your ears are clear of wax, try Ear Planes earplugs, which slow down the change in air pressure on ascent and landing.
3.) “We can comfortably manage with our ears 95% full of ear wax, but once it’s more than this, it causes a problem.” If you have regular ear wax build up, consider getting your ears checked and if necessary, having the earwax removed, before going on holiday.
4.) If you need to have ear wax removed, try microsuction. Derived from ear surgery, it uses a binocular operating microscope to see right into the ear canal and a very fine sterile suction device at low pressure to remove the wax.
5.) Try ear drops. If you've got nothing better then it is worth trying to unblock your ears with ear drops such as olive oil or sodium bi-carbonate ear drops, but stay away from hydrogen peroxide containing drops - they do nothing the others don't do and can damage your ears.
6.) Always dry the outer part of your ear with a soft towel, the inside will dry on its own. Never use a hair dryer, as this may lead to burning your ear.
7.) Always use protection. Ringing in your ears after a big night out is probably protective but repeated exposure to loud noise is the surest way to permanently lose hearing. If you're going on a clubbing holiday consider ear protection in loud clubs, or if you listen to music on your commute, wear sound cancelling headphones which allow you to use much lower volumes and still hear the tunes.
8.) Do you think you suffer from more ear wax in your favourite phone ear? This is a myth, along with sleeping on your favourite side and ear wax building up in that ear. Other myths include blaming colds on the production of ear wax - it just makes it more noticeable - and foods such as dairy, eggs and alcohol do not encourage extra wax production, so there’s no need to avoid them.
Tagged in Health