When you get out of the shower, you dry off with your towel and maybe some mornings or evenings you grab a few Q-tips and try to dry out your ears so you can get that full body clean feeling. But have you heard that using Q-tips may cause more harm than good? You don’t have to give up using these tools completely, but there is a right and a wrong way to use them. And using them incorrectly could cause serious damage to your ears and potentially your hearing.

At Platinum Hearing Aids, we have a team of audiologists who are passionate about educating our patients about all potential hearing issues, from tinnitus to hearing loss. Get in touch with us today for quality hearing aids and thorough treatment.

What’s Wrong With Q-tips?

“The rule of thumb with Q-tips is don’t put anything in your ear smaller than your elbow,” says William H. Shapiro, audiologist and associate professor at NYU Langone. When you insert a Q-tip to presumably remove wax from the area just outside the inner ear, what you are really doing is pushing any existing wax further into your ear.

Effects of Using Q-tips Incorrectly

Your eardrum lies just beyond where you’re pressing the Q-tip, so the wax you’re trying to remove is really being pressed up against the eardrum. When a build up of wax occurs, it can prevent your eardrum from effectively vibrating, which is how you hear. Over time, this can lead to hearing loss.

If hearing loss hasn’t caused you to go in your bathroom and throw out any Q-tips you find, here’s another scary effect: insects. The wax in your ear is actually very beneficial and serves multiple purposes.

• Safety Device: Wax helps to keep out spiders and other insects that try to crawl into your ear at night.
• Lubrication: Wax keeps your ear canal lubricated to prevent it from becoming dry and itchy.
• Acidic: Wax is acidic, which will help prevent fungus from growing in your years.
• A Trap: Along with spiders, wax also keeps our hair, dust, and dead skin.

What is Wax?

Have you ever wondered what wax is made of? The proper name for earwax is cerumen, and it only occurs in the area just outside of the ear canal. In this area, there are thousands of sebaceous glands, which you can blame for oily hair, and sweat glands. The substance secreted by these glands is what the wax develops from.

How to Safely Use Q-tips

Many audiologists may tell you that there isn’t a safe way to use Q-tips, but if you just have to clean your ears, only swab the outside of your ear. If you do need a build up of wax removed, schedule an appointment with a doctor to have it safely and professionally removed.

What Not to Do

Avoid pushing the swab into your ear, even if you are being extremely careful. If you are considering using the ear candling method, don’t. This method uses pressure to pull out the wax, which can also cause damage to your eardrum.

Always keep in mind that earwax is good for you and it should stay in your ears! If you have any questions, get in touch with Platinum Hearing Aids today.

 

Hearing aids are a tool that provides children and adults alike with an opportunity to hear better. That being said, it’s critical that they are taken care of on a daily basis and as needed. In today’s blog post we’re going to touch on a few of the things that you should be doing daily to ensure that your hearing aids are working as intended.

Check the Batteries

The first thing that we’re going to mention is quick and easy — check the batteries. The batteries of your hearing aids should last roughly 1 to 2 weeks, and your hearing aids will work the best when the battery power is at its highest. Make sure to keep extra batteries with you just in case the ones you’re using die.

Clean Your Hearing Aids

Our ears collect more than we’d like to admit, and that all needs to be cleaned off of your hearing aids on a regular basis. Using a soft, dry piece of material, you will want to rub down the hearing aid gently. You can also use a diluted mixture of soap and water to ensure that they’re really clean. If you do choose to do this, make sure that you have a forced air blower on hand too — remove all water so as not to damage the hearing aids.

Sound Check Hearing Aids

You will be the one wearing your hearings aids on a daily basis, so you are going to know best when something isn’t working as it’s supposed to. The best way to catch problems with your hearing aids early on is to do daily sound checks to ensure that everything sounds nice and clear. There should be no feedback, no breaks in what you’re hearing, and no unusual sounds paired with the sound. If you do hear anything, make sure to get them checked out by a professional as soon as possible.

Keep Them Dry

We touched a little bit on the process of cleaning your hearing aids and mentioned that you could use a diluted mixture of soap and water if you choose, but one of the most important things that you can do for your hearing aids is to keep them dry — when possible. Any time that you are storing your hearing aids make sure that they are in a place where moisture won’t build up, and they’ll be able to stay dry.

Store Them Properly

Without a doubt, one of the best things that you can do for your hearing aids is to store them properly when you’re not using them. These devices are powerful, but they’re also extremely fragile. When you’re not using your hearing aids, make sure that they’re in a hard shell case that will ensure they are dry and safe from any outside objects. This is especially important if you’re traveling and storing them separately.

Visit Platinum Hearing Aids

Platinum Hearing Aids provides the Detroit area with the high-quality devices that they need to hear well. If you’re interested in learning more about how you could benefit from hearing aids, contact our team today, and we’d be happy to schedule a consultation.