TIL that there are two types of earwax: wet and dry
the type of earwax you have comes down in part to your skin type, Dr. Shapiro explains. People with oilier skin may have wet earwax, while those with drier skin tend to have dry earwax, she says.
People of East Asian descent are more likely to have dry earwax, while wet earwax seems to be more common with everyone else
https://www.self.com/story/types-of-earwaxOpen linkView original on lemmy.world165
Comments40
"Earwax is one of those things that you probably think about for around 0.2 seconds every other month, if that."
Article lost all credibility in the first sentence.
Yea, if I'm not cleaning out my ears once it twice a week, I'm getting a blockage.
Need to unclog the traffic jams from the tunnels every once in a while.
Get the lead out
That's one way to spend your weekend.
I'll continue to live dangerously via Q-tips. Been doing it since I was a child, and no doctor's told me I've irreparably damaged my ears yet.
The trick with Q-tips is to not go far. I mainly use it to clean the initial part of my ear and only rubbing it in a circular manner to prevent cramming anything in there. If I find myself the need to go deeper, I will use eardrops.
The best discovery in my life is something called the Elephant Ear. It's a squirt bottle for getting water behind your earwax and pushing it out from the back
Hydrogen peroxide dissolves it, when the bubbling stops it's done.
I just recently discovered the use of peroxide in this way. It's cheap and works better than anything else I've tried.
Yeah from what I was reading it's used professionally in dr offices. IIRC they use like slightly more concentrated h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) but I wouldn't even if you could get your hands on stronger stuff as it could cause DMG and it's mainly, again from my understanding, used to speed up the process so you aren't sitting there for like 30 minutes or something. Again, probably wrong and may have forgotten this incorrectly. Consult a Dr not some rando online.
This seems to be a plant... Can you provide a link or something?
As a kid, I had really bad earwax and had to go to the doctor because it was affecting my hearing. They used this and it was life changing.
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Washer-Bottle-Doctor-Easy/dp/B005M2B5P0
That was done to me and it sounds worse than it is.
For me it was using eardrops and then putting earplugs on and sleeping the night. The next day the school nurse (this was >20 years ago) flushed my ears. Felt orgasmic afterwards, could actually hear properly. After that I learned how to wash my own ears — inside and out.
Apparently this is the one thing which is controlled by a single gene, and works as you were taught in school with dominant and recessive traits.
Nothing else does, including the things you were taught like eye and hair colour - they are much more complicated.
I'm going to doubt the single gene hypothesis. I have dry ear wax in one ear and wet in the other.
Is there any chance you're a chimera?
Hmm, maybe it's one per ear?!
Do you notice that the amount and/or scent of your perspiration is different comparing the two sides of your body?
Did you wash one ear and not the other?
Or did you sleep on one side on a sweaty night?
Something (maybe Alexandrite") borked the link for me. If anyone else has the same issue, here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaqQJj24yCY_bDQ35jS0Gvw
And yeah, that's nasty. I had to get my earwax flushed out once. It was unpleasant and super gross, and I've used the specialized peroxide solutions a couple of times in the years since. My wife has the dry wax gene, and finds wet wax both gross and confusing.
The only thing I'll add is that having used a cheap camera earwax cleaner, the magnification makes every normal little waxbooger look like a Star Trek brain slug, so while still dramatic (don't get me wrong), the videos always look just a touch more dramatic than they really are.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/channel/UCaqQJj24yCY_bDQ35jS0Gvw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Like, with a warm water jet by a nurse?
It's ooky but it certainly works.
Yup. Big-ass syringe full of warm water, possibly with some solution in it (I don't recall that part). It was affecting my hearing in one ear, and the flush fixed it right up.
I’m an Audiologist. Love it when you get one of these. ;)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
I'm just gonna leave this here.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Whoa. O. M. G. 🥺
I think it's just really impressive to see that much ear wax coming out of someone's ear. I honestly had no clue
🤣 TIL too much lol. Never seen that much come out of an ear before!!
My god, that’s glorious
If you are the wet type you may reconsider buying expensive in-ears. The chance to ruin them quite fast is not that low.
I remember reading a fact that the same gene that leads to dry earwax also leads to higher likelihood of big boobs
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Which tastes better?
I have the ABCC11 gene. I have dry ear wax and no body odor.
Multiple types of saliva too
Eew.. Dry saliva sounds way more unpleasant than dry earwax
If you've ever been working out too hard and you want to spit but your saliva won't, that's that saliva. It sucks.
I use a cotton swab when it becomes itchy or I can feel and hear it moving.
Just like boogers!