Taking Care of Your Ears

Taking good care of your ears translates into taking good care of your hearing, which is why it’s important to know the proper techniques and tools. Do you know how various activities affect your ears? Do you know which habits promote ear health and which ones endanger it? Read the following list of dos and don’ts for ear care, and you’ll know where you stand.

Do keep your ears dry

Moisture in your ears is always a bad thing. Activities like swimming and other water sports are notorious for getting water trapped inside the ears. The warm, moist interior of your ears then becomes a breeding ground for bacteria, often leading to painful swimmer’s ear and inner ear infections. This is why it’s so important to keep your ears dried out. The simplest way to do this is towel dry them gently, but thoroughly, any time your head has been in water.

Don’t use cotton swabs

Most hearing care professionals will advise you never to place any object inside your ears smaller than the size of your elbow. Using Q-tips endangers your ear health by pushing wax, cotton fuzz and dirt further inside the ear canal where it can interfere with hearing and encourage infections. It also places you in danger of injuring or even rupturing an ear drum. Just don’t do it.
Do wash your ears regularly

When it comes to the inside of your ears, let earwax do the job. Cleaning the outside of your ears, however, will keep dirt and excess wax from making their way into your ear canals. Don’t forget to gently wash your ears as part of your daily hygiene and grooming routine, as well as any time you engage in dirty, dusty and sweaty activities.

Don’t overdo earwax removal remedies

Even though cleaning is important, too much cleaning can actually harm your ears by encouraging dryness, irritating the skin that lines your ear canals or introducing fluid to the inner ear structures. If you need to use gentle oil-based drops and other over-the-counter treatments once in a while, exercise caution.

Do visit a hearing care professional for severe buildups

There might be a time when too much dry earwax collects in your ears and causes a painful obstruction that compromises your hearing and threatens to damage interior ear structures. At

this point, home remedies are unlikely to do much. Your best option is to visit a hearing healthcare professional who can carefully soften and remove the excess earwax using medical equipment. Minding this list of dos and don’ts can help you maintain healthy ears in between routine visits to a hearing healthcare professional, and will prevent unnecessary ones. Take good care of your ears – your hearing health can’t help but reap the benefits.