If you own a simple bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide, commonly known as just plain peroxide, you can put your q-tips to better use! Hydrogen Peroxide seems to magically dissolve ear wax laying in the ear canal, and it’s completely safe and doctor recommended!
When I was a little girl, I used to get swimmer’s ear all the time. I don’t really know why, but I do remember all the pain associated with it. It was in one of those trips to the doctors, that the doctor let me in on a little secret. Hydrogen Peroxide in the ear can help alleviate wax build up, unclog water in the ear and clears the ear without damage to the ear drum! This is not a naturapath or homeopathic doctor who would normally give such suggestions, but a regular pediatrician. It was one of the most useful pieces of advice I got.
So here is how it works. Get a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from any drug store or most conveniently, in your medicine cabinet. You will need two cotton balls and two Q-tips. Okay, I lied about not needing them, but you won’t need them as often with this ear wax remedy. You may want to warm up the peroxide a little bit by pouring a few tablespoons in a glass and place the glass in warm water for about five minutes.
Fill about half a capful of hydrogen peroxide back into the lid of the bottle. Lay on one side of your body so that your head is propped up slightly to be completely level with your body. You are going to slowly pour the peroxide into your ear canal until your ear is full. You should immediately start feeling little tiny bubbles come to the surface of your ear. It may feel a little weird and mat cause a tickle or itch, just bear through it, in time you’ll learn to relax through it. You may hear what sounds like large bubbles pushing the rest of the peroxide into your ear, sometimes these feel like pressure, but it doesn’t cause any harm. As a matter of fact, that’s just a sign that the peroxide is deep enough into your ear canal to clean the ear wax from the ear.
It is best to leave the peroxide in for at least five minutes to get the full effect. Once it is done, stuff a cotton ball in your ear and flip around to do side number two. Repeat the above steps for ear number two. Make sure that you flip over again, with the cotton ball in ear number two to completely drain the peroxide out of it.
You may notice pieces of wax on the cotton ball, or discoloration, this is the wax buildup that has come out with the peroxide. The next step is drying out the ear and removing the remaining wax that the peroxide brought to the surface. Simply swipe a cotton swab in your ear to blot up the wetness and wipe off the remaining wax. Wallah! You are done, and your ears probably won’t need any swabbing at all for about a week or more! Think of all the q-tips you will save. Now you can actually use them for what the back of the box suggests. If you didn’t know, the makers of Q-tip cotton swabs do not recommend cleaning your ears with them. Instead they hope you buy their product the clean in between the keys of your keyboard, which still doesn’t explain why they aren’t found in the cleaning isle!
Reference:
- www.qtips.com/ (just so you can see what the makers of q-tip suggest you do with a q-tip…it’s kind of funny!)
