ATLANTA – It’s ugly and annoying, but there are good reasons why your ears are full of wax.
Some people dig around with Q-tips or other foreign objects in an attempt to free their ears of sticky wax. Doctors say it is a natural substance that serves a purpose.
“Other than just a visual and somebody look in my ear and see something, it never bothered me,” says Ron Rich, a patient at Atlanta Hearing Associates.
Audiologists at Atlanta Hearing Associates in Dunwoody tell 11Alive’s Why Guy that earwax is natural and, most of the time, harmless.
Glands in your eardrum produce two types of secretions, one that’s oily, the other more like sweat. The secretions mix with skin, hair, and dirt to create earwax.
Earwax is like a sentry standing guard at the castle gate. It helps moisturize your ear canal and blocks foreign particles from getting into your ear drum.
“People try to take it out because they think that it’s dirty,” says Dr. Jody Seligman, Audiologist at Atlanta Hearing Associates. “It actually serves a purpose. It’s actually a protective mechanism.”
Doctors also tell us that excess wax will typically fall out of your ear. Talking and chewing helps that happen without you digging around with a Q-tip.
“We recommend letting the earwax migrate out of the ear as it normally does and not putting anything at all in the ear canal to clean it,” says Dr. Rita Chaiken. “See an audiologist or physician to remove it.”