this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2026
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I am lucky enough to be one of those people who simply never builds up any serious amounts of ear wax. It’s oily and not crumbly, so a gentle swish of a Q-tip after a shower and it all comes out. my doc checks my ears twice a year and has never had cause to complain.
But IIRC ear wax is soft enough to never be particularly painful unless you pack it down with something like a Q-tip. Like, so long as you know you have one of those ear wax types for whom Q-tips in any usage capacity is a bad idea (it’s usually the crumbly ear wax), the most it will do is accumulate until your hearing is affected.
Now granted, it’ll plug up the ear canal until you have trouble hearing things. But all you need then is some professional irrigation by a doctor a few times a year, and as long as you aren’t in a third-world country like America, that should be 100% free.
i have to lavage my ears out every 6month-year due to massively increased shedding from atopic dermatitis, the indication is when sounds get muffled in one ear. getting the ear lavage kits from online has been very useful.
Ear wax has never been an issue for me either, I had a friend who had just had their ear canal rinsed by a doctor. And their explanation kinda fit the bill..
So with a new born, new house that I was renovating, and stubbornness that I can handle everything myself, I managed to convince myself that this was the root cause
I suffer from impaction occasionally and used to irrigate with 2% hydrogen peroxide. The H2O2 reacts with the wax and helps break it up. It is one of the strangest sensations though, bubbles forming and popping en masse inside of your ear canal. Eventually I bought an ear cleaning otoscope and scoop out the wax manually every few months.
i just use warm water and a ear lavage, the ones with the spray bottle attached to a tube to squeeze into the eary. before that i used a ear syringe which was much more time consuming and annoying to use.