Wondering should you use q tips to clean your ears?  Learn more.

Usually, ears are self-cleaning, and earwax is natural and healthy to have in your ear canal, but if it builds up too much then there are a couple ways to remove it. Many people initially reach for a Q Tip to clean out their ears, but now doctors frequently caution against this, so they may want to know what to use instead of q-tips? Keep reading to find out are q tips bad for your ears?

Why are Q tips bad for ears?

Q Tips, or cotton swabs, are not safe to clean out your ear canal. In fact, from 1990-2010, ear cleaning with a cotton swab was the most common cause of ear injury for children admitted to the emergency room in the United States. More than 260,000 children were affected. Most commonly, these injuries involve an object stuck in the ear, perforated eardrums, and soft tissue injuries. Therefore it is important to learn how to clean your ears without Q Tips. Moreover, if you use a Q Tip to clean your ear canal it is likely to push the ear wax deeper into your ear, instead of removing it. Q Tips are safe to use to clean the outer ear - the folds around your ear lobes, but not in the ear canal.  

What were q tips made for?

Apparently Q Tips were originally invented in 1923 by Leo Gerstenzang, whose wife was wrapping cotton around a toothpick to clean a baby’s ears. This may have been a good idea 100 years ago, but modern doctors agree that it is unsafe to use a Q Tip to clean out your ear canal for the reasons mentioned above. So if you are wondering what were q tips made for, the answer is, ironically, exactly what doctors don’t want you to use them for…

What to use instead of Q-tips

Now that we know that q tips are bad for ears, a safer approach to earwax removal is to purchase a digital otoscope with a wax removal attachment. ScopeAround makes a number of devices that are safe to use because you can see inside your ear the entire time you are using the device. You can’t see what you are doing if you poke your ear with a Q Tip. Digital otoscopes have integrated LED lights to illuminate the ear canal and help the tip of the otoscope avoid your eardrum. Ear wax removal is easy to do because a soft silicone-tipped spoon attaches to the end of the otoscope and that combined with the camera gives you the perfect tool to scrape out pieces of earwax. 

Shop ScopeAround Today!

Although many people have used Q Tips to clean their ears this is not a doctor-recommended procedure. It’s important to learn how to clean your ears safely at home without Q Tips. The safest method to clean your ears at home is to purchase a digital otoscope. ScopeAround makes a range of otoscope cameras, which are perfect for all your ear-cleaning and examination needs.

 

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