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The wax normally makes its way out toward the opening of the ear, usually from opening and closing your jaw throughout the day when you talk and eat, Dr. Selleck says.

Tips to clean your ears — and why ENTs want you to stop removing ear wax with cotton swabs and at-home irrigation kits Story by Sarah Hunter Simanson ...

Ear wax is a vital substance helps protect the ear canal from damage and infection. Under normal circumstances, you can leave the ear wax alone.

According to doctors, you should not use cotton swabs to clean your ears. Instead, they recommend using a damp washcloth or ear drops made to soften and remove wax.

According to doctors, you should not use cotton swabs to clean your ears. Instead, they recommend using a damp washcloth or ear drops made to soften and remove wax.

Cotton swab fibers, while appearing “nice and fuzzy,” she said, are “actually quite abrasive.” And that can cause your ear to produce more wax to protect the now-vulnerable skin.

So, most times, the reason you’d have an earwax blockage up against your eardrum is because you tried to clean your ears with a cotton swab — or something like it — and pushed the wax in deeper.

While “most otolaryngologists have seen injuries caused by ear canal swabs,” he wrote, there’s no clear data on just how often such injuries—which really do sound harrowing! —occur.

Even though every year more than two million people have troublesome ear wax, syringing to remove impacted ear wax is a service that's no longer routinely offered.

Cotton swabs: Although they may look safe and perfect for your ears, cotton swabs are too small to be used safely inside the ear and could cause damage.