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How to Clean Your Ears

Some people swear by their cotton swabs, and others say ear candles are the way to go. Maybe you’re one of those that says you should never even clean your ears.

About the only thing doctors do agree on putting anything inside your ear is a bad idea. Your ears usually do a good job cleaning themselves and don’t need any extra care. The only reason you should clean them is to soften or remove earwax from the outside of your ear canals. And if you’re going to do that, you’ll need to know how to do it carefully.

Why Your Ears Make Wax

The reason we feel tempted to clean our ears is because of that substance called cerumen, commonly called earwax. It’s normal for your body to produce it, and it actually helps protect and lubricate your ears. If you didn’t have earwax, your ears would probably be itchy and dry.

It even has antibacterial properties, which means your ears are self-cleaning. Earwax is like a filter for your ears, keeping out harmful things like dirt and dust, and trapping them so they don’t go deep inside.

When you chew and move your jaw, you help move old earwax out of the ear canal to the ear opening. That’s where it usually dries up and falls out. But earwax isn’t formed in the deep part of your ear canal; it’s made in the outer section.

So, the only reason you’d have an earwax blockage up against your eardrum is because you tried to clean your ears with a cotton swab -- or something like it -- and pushed the wax in deeper.

Swabbing or sticking pointy objects inside your ear can cause other serious problems:


Infection
Rupture of the eardrum
Significant hearing loss

Should You Clean Your Ears?
Ideally, no; your ear canals shouldn’t need cleaning. But if too much earwax builds up and starts to cause symptoms or it keeps your doctor from doing a proper ear exam, you might have something called cerumen impaction. This means earwax has completely filled your ear canal and it can happen in one or both ears.