4 Signs You Need Professional Ear Cleaning

 

The ears are incredibly impressive organs, which not only enable us to hear, but also boast an efficient self-cleaning system. In most cases, your ears will clean themselves. For some however, the need for professional wax removal is needed. Four signs that you might need to visit a hearing health professional to have your ears professionally cleaned.

1. Blocked Ear

If you feel like your ears are clogged or blocked, this may indicate that there is too much earwax within the ear. Wax plays a crucial role in keeping the ears clean, but if there’s too much wax, this can cause problems. Blocked ears may be synonymous with increased wax production or a collection, which a hearing care provider will be able to eliminate by means of professional cleaning techniques.

2. Ear Pain

Pain in the ears can be associated with infections, but often, it’s a symptom of excessive earwax. If you have too much wax in your ears, the cleaning mechanisms may struggle to tackle the build-up, resulting in the wax hardening. If you have a collection of hard wax inside the ear, and it presses against the nerves, you may experience pain and discomfort.

3. Dark Earwax

Most of us have cleaned our ears before, and we’re familiar with the yellow color of wax. If you notice that the wax coming out of your ears is darker than usual, for example, it has a brown tinge, this may indicate that there is more debris in the ears, and a hearing specialist may recommend professional ear cleaning.

4. Loss Of Hearing

There are several reasons why people experience hearing loss. In the early stages, a hearing health professional will often want to rule out underlying causes that can be treated to potentially improve hearing. Examples include ear infections and excessive earwax. If earwax is clogging the ear canal, this can make it more difficult to hear. You might find that if you have your ears professionally cleaned, your hearing suddenly improves. If you do develop signs of hearing loss, whether they come on gradually or rapidly, it’s wise to contact a hearing care provider as soon as possible.

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Ear Candling and the Risks

The reason Ear Candling does not work or CAN'T work is fairly simple: Earwax is sticky, the negative pressure that would be needed to pull it from the ear canal would have to be so powerful that it would rupture the eardrum in the process.  Researchers who measured the pressure during candling have proven that no negative pressure was created and found that no ear wax was removed from the ear canal during the process, in fact just the opposite happened; candle wax was actually deposited into the ear canal of numerous clients.

The “wax” that appear on the paper plate or other collection device used is nothing more than the ashes from the burnt wick and wax of the cone itself.

                                               Dangers Reported

Candling poses several dangers, the most serious of which involve burning caused by the hot wax. Candle manufacturers claim that their candles will drip only down the outside of the ear, but shamefully few direct the user to hold the candle horizontally to prevent this. A 1996 survey of 144 ear, nose, and throat physicians, found that 14 had seen patients who had been harmed by ear candling, including at least 13 cases of external burns, 7 cases of ear canal obstruction with candle wax, and 1 perforated eardrum [3].