What is Ear Wax?

Earwax, sometimes referred to as cerumen, is made in the outer ear canal. In the outer ear canal there are special glands that help to produce earwax for parts of the ear canal that is exposed to the outside. Earwax is important because protect the ear canal and act as an antibacterial substance. Earwax is produced by the body to help prevent dryness and itchiness from occurring. Finally, earwax helps to trap molecules from your surroundings before it has a chance to get into your ear canal.

Ear Wax Overproduction

Many people feel using cue tips is sufficient, however, sometimes your ear canals may produce excess ear wax. Sometimes, when the body over-produces ear wax, it can lead to hearing loss, irritation, and pain among other things. Most of the time the ear naturally sheds ear wax and replaces it with freshly produced earwax or people will get rid of the old earwax when they are washing themselves.

What does it mean to have impacted ear wax?

Earwax can build up so much to the point where your doctor may say you have ear wax impacted. When your earwax is impacted, it means that so much ear wax has built up to the point where there is something wrong.

Effects of Impacted Earwax

If you have any of these signs it is important to contact your doctor or a medical specialist to get the right treatment for your situation. Some signs that something may be wrong include:

Pain
Difficulty Hearing
Odor
Discharge (puss or liquid)
Ears beginning to feel full all the time.

Treating Impacted Earwax

When you think you might be beginning to have a buildup of earwax or that you have impacted earwax, you should not use q tips to try and get the earwax out. Using q tips will most likely just cause you to push the earwax even further in the ear canal, possibly making problems worse. Instead, here a couple of things that you can try at home:

Clean your ear with a cloth
Solutions to help dissolve earwax
Using distilled water through a syringe to clean out the ear
Having your doctor manually removing the ear wax.

Products for Impacted Earwax Removal

There are many over the counter products that can be used to help treat impacted earwax or the build up of earwax. One thing to look for in products that you are thinking about buying to treat the buildup of earwax, is the presence of hydrogen peroxide in the product. Geri Care Earwax Removal Aid is a great product that contains hydrogen peroxide. It is important to have hydrogen peroxide in the product because it is very efficient at breaking down the build of up ear wax.

Regardless of which product you decide to use, you should always seek the attention of a medical professional while you are doing self-treatment in order to ensure that you are doing it without harming your body.

Please find many other over the counter products and medication options for many different conditions in our Over The Counter product collection.