3 Ear-Wax Removal Horror Stories Will Make You Cringe

Got an ear itch? Excessive ear wax? Got a cotton swab? Problem solved, right? Wrong. "People should absolutely not stick Q-tips inside their ears," says Arnold Henry, M.D., and ear, nose, and throat doc at Indiana University Health. First, it doesn't work the way you think it does. Instead of cleaning out ear wax, it's just pushing most of the wax further down into your ear where it can build up, create an infection, and even temporarily decrease your hearing, he explains. Not only that but every time you stick something into your ear canal—be it a cotton swab, a bobby pin, a pen cap or any of the other popular "ear cleaning" hacks—you risk puncturing your ear drum, he says, adding that punctured ear drums are excruciatingly painful and can lead to infections and even deafness.

But, let's be honest:
You knew that already. Digging around in your ear with a cotton swab is, well, eargasmic. There's a reason why so many people still do it even though we all know better. Ear-wax removal just feels so good! Yet no one wants to go deaf via wax so if doctors haven't convinced you to quit your Q-tip habit yet, perhaps these horror stories will. Let's start with spider eggs...

"I've always been OCD about cleaning out my ears. Even though I knew I shouldn't stick things in them, I was always worried that my ears weren't clean enough and would use a bobby pin or Q-tip or whatever to constantly get the wax out. Then one night I woke up because I felt some sort of itch in my ear, something that was more irritating than usual. It felt like something was stuck in there.

"I tried to scrape it out but felt something pierce my ear canal and screamed. I went to the closest ER and they stuck a tiny camera down my ear canal. When I saw the screen, I felt like a cold dagger stabbed my gut. There was a live wolf spider staring back at the camera, its little eyes unblinking the entire time. I started to panic but the doctor told me he could give the spider an injection to kill it. I watched the monitor, as he inserted the needle into its head, and squeezed the serum in. We watched the spider twitch around slowly dying, but as it began to curl up, it revealed a small egg sac on its back. I can't even tell you what it feels like to have a thousand little spiders on your ear drum. It was horrifying. And I have permanent damage to my ear drum from it. Since then I've learned that not only is it okay to have earwax, but it's important as it functions as a filter for your ears, keeping dangerous things—like spiders—out. Your ears are probably clean the way they are, but if you're worried they're not clean, at least get it professionally removed and do not use a Q-tip." —CherryThePanPyro, Reddit

"I used Q-tips to clean out my ears except apparently I pushing a little too hard at times, especially around the edges of my ear canal. I got an absolute rager of an ear infection about four months ago. Pushing against the edges wasn't removing the wax, it was compacting it, and essentially caused a pimple in my ear canal. There was no way to see it, clean it, or extract it, and it ended up getting infected. It was horrifyingly painful and I ended up need expensive ear drops—over $100—to heal it." —suzepie, Reddit

 

 "I used to use Q-tips to clean the wax out of my ears all the time but instead of cleaning it, it was packing the wax in. Eventually I was almost entirely deaf in my left ear. I didn't have health insurance at the time, so I didn't seek medical attention for anything short of life-threatening situations. Being deaf on one side sucked, but I got used to it. Then five years later, I'm hiking a mountain and my ears popped from the change it altitude. At first I was confused: The sudden rush of air and sound into my 'deaf' ear disoriented me, not to mention I suddenly had a big gob of goo coming out of my ear canal. I sat down and fished out the nastiest thing I hope to ever remove from my cranium. But oh, the sound! I could hear again! So the moral of the story is if you go deaf from packing wax into your ear, a change in altitude may help. Or, you could go to a doctor in the first place and not be deaf." —chad_sechsington, Reddit