Here are some tips for keeping your ears healthy.
If you think your hearing may be affected by noise at work, the best place to start is by talking to your employer, (who has a legal duty under European Union regulation) to assess and control the risks. As a general guide, you shouldn't have to work without ear protection, with noise levels at work that are louder than a busy street.
If you experience any loss of hearing, our expert Audiologists have the knowledge and experience to answer any questions you may have about hearing protection as well as being able to give you a full comprehensive hearing test. This will leave you with the knowledge and understanding of the health of your ears and the best way to protect them.
Discover and explore our range of ear protection devices including noise-cancelling earplugs, ear defenders and headphones that can help protect your hearing in a wide range of environments.
From a medical point of view, the ears usually clean themselves, so that active cleaning is usually not necessary. Nevertheless, people produce different amounts of ear wax (med .: cerumen). So it happens again and again that a clogged ear impairs hearing performance.
There is no earwax overproduction. Everyone is different. One ear produces more, the other less. Not to forget: the secretion is healthy and important. Its function is to remove dirt and bacteria. It arises in the wax glands, medically called glandulae ceruminosae. The glands are located in the anterior ear canal. Only there is the secretion. The glands that secrete it are slightly altered sweat glands.
In general, it consists of more than 1000 substances, not all of which are known by a long way. The cerumen also contains antibacterial agents to make it as difficult as possible for the little intruders. This is another reason to leave enough wax in your ears. Because this can prevent infections such as otitis media. The reason for a clogged ear is an impaired removal of the ear wax. Then only liquid will help to dissolve it.
If you want to rinse your ears yourself, you should pay attention to a few safety instructions, as the ear irrigation can cause damage to the eardrum due to excessive pressure if it is not carried out properly . An increased water temperature also affects the sensitive equilibrium organ. In general, ear irrigation should only be performed on healthy ears without infections or damage to the eardrum.
Performing an ear irrigation:
It is safer to have your ears cleaned by an ENT specialist, who checks in advance whether the eardrum is intact. Then he dissolves stubborn dirt with ear drops. The doctor then rinses the ears with water at body temperature from a metal or plastic syringe. At the end, he checks again whether the flush did not cause any injury.
If lukewarm water is not enough to liquefy the wax in the ears, the person affected can use a home remedy to remove wax that remains in the ear canal for a short time and softens the cerumen. A pipette from the pharmacy or a small spoon can be used to put it in the ear.
Cleaning with salt water
Cleaning with oil
Cleaning with steam
Cotton buds are not at all suitable for cleaning ears, because they often push the cerumen in front of the eardrum, which leads to the formation of a plug . Ear wax is a natural protective film that has a killing effect on germs and bacteria and is used to clean the ear canals. When using cotton swabs, this protective film is pushed into the ear canal, where it can clump together and dry out. Damage to the eardrum, ear pain and, in the worst case, tinnitus or acute hearing loss are not infrequently the result of improper use.
To get an idea of how to clean the ears, it is worth taking a look inside the ear. The ear canal becomes narrower and narrower deeper in the ear. After this "bottleneck" it expands again before it ends at the eardrum. This funnel shape in the first few centimeters explains why it makes no sense to remove ear wax with a cotton swab. This is because it automatically gets into an increasingly narrow area when you try to remove it mechanically. Therefore you have to loosen the wax in order to let it drain outwards.
Nevertheless, many believe that they can clean their ears with ear buds. Perhaps because these are often used to care for the auricle in infants. But they do not have to be placed directly in the ear canal: the skin in the ear is very thin and not designed for mechanical friction. Even the “cotton wool” ends of the swab can injure the skin, creating space for bacteria that can cause inflammation when cleaning the ears.
