Wondering how to clean your ears without q tips?  Learn more.

Q Tips, or cotton swabs, are not safe to use. 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 (see "How to get cotton out of your ear"), perforated eardrums, and soft tissue injuries. Therefore it is important to learn how to clean your ears without Q Tips.

How to clean my ears without Q tips

There are several alternatives to how to clean my ears without Q Tips, and which you might use would be determined by how much earwax you have in your ear canal. If your problem isn’t serious, but you do feel like you have a little  earwax buildup, you can gently clean the outside of your ears. Just use a washcloth. You also can try putting a few drops of baby oil, hydrogen peroxide, mineral oil, or glycerin in your ear to soften the wax. You can flush your ears out with warm water and a rubber bulb to wash away the wax.

If the wax is not washing away easily a modern approach to earwax removal is to use 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. 

If your ear canal is completely blocked, meaning you can’t look down the canal and see your eardrum, then it might be time to visit a doctor. Your doctor can remove excess wax using a small, curved instrument called a curet or by using suction while inspecting the ear. Your doctor can also flush out the wax with a syringe filled with warm water. 

How to clean your ears at home without Q tips?

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. You can use an earwax softener such as hydrogen peroxide to soften it and help it work its way out on its own. You can also use a digital otoscope to safely scrape out some of the excess earwax. Doctors frequently caution against the use of Q Tips, so it’s important to know how to clean out ears without q tips. Finally, if your ear canal becomes impacted you may have to visit your doctor to have your ear cleaned out, although this is rare.

What to use instead of Q-tips

Q Tips have been around for decades, but they are dangerous so it’s important to know how to clean ears without q-tips. A modern 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. 

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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 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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