Kristen, when I was a kid I always had ear infections, and would get swimmer's ear from taking a bath in February, and my ears produced too much wax and every so often my mom would take me to the doctor to get my ears "irrigated." They'd water-pik my ear until the wax came out. It felt amazing.
We bought the hippie candles and they didn't do shit! He's still deaf. I guess an actual healthcare professional should intervene so we can gossip properly again.
You can get these waxy paper cones at Whole Foods that have done the trick for me in the past. And omg, the gunk that comes out will make you weep unholy tears. Like, you'll think wow, I should take a picture of that, then the rational side of you will be like, wait, it's earwax, but it'll be such legendary ear wax, you'll feel like it needs commemorating.
And holy shit, the Wikipedia on ear candling. I just fainted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear_candling
The ones we got were precisely those shitty Whole Foods Biosun ones mentioned in that Wikipeida article. Fuck you, homeopathy!
I usually don't comment - just lurk, but I had to this time because 1) I used to use ear candles all the time until they started smoking out the wrong end and one doesn't often think of "inside the ear canal" as a place to specifically avoid getting burned, but it really should go pretty high on that list. And then I thought "hey, what a freak defective ear candle, I should try again" and got another smoke burn. So.
But the doctors with their little ear wax remover sticks and/or water piks... omg. sometimes I wish my ears would stop up just so I would have an excuse to get it done.
and 2) I will probably be laughing about "I SAID DID YOU SEE THAT WEIRD LOOKING BABY" for weeks.
Eh, you can give away Nintendos and still have awesome sex.
(Giving away samples of Cheerios, however, is where I suspect it all goes horribly wrong.)
Ooh, tell me Nick's going to get rid of all the bad socks now. Just think of a drawer filled only with magic socks. It's so decadent!
Ick. Ick ick ick ick ick. I am So Incredibly Twitchy about my ears. Nothing goes inside my ears. Ever. I flinch halfway across the room when the doctor looks in my ear with the magic ear-peering device. When I had MRIs at the hospital that makes you wear earplugs, instead of using noise-cancelling headphones (which, thankfully, is what the hospital I go to now uses) I had to make the lab techs insert the ear plugs (while I tried not to flinch and/or vomit) because I am physically incapable of deliberately inserting something that far into my own ear. A few of my friends know how squicked I get about ear things, and will deliberately clean their ears with Q-tips if they know I can see them, when I'm at their homes, and it makes me feel so ill I can hardly stand it. Apparently I am in some extreme freakish minority, though...
Hey Miss B, my brother can't stand seeing anyone put in earrings. We used to put them in and take them out repeatedly, just for him. Well, really, just because it was fun to gross him out, but... One mustn't talk about leg shaving around him either. This from the former scab-picking king!
With fluid or air in the ear, something else that will sometimes draw it out is a filtered cigarette. You lay down on your side and insert the filter into your ear. Then you light it and lay there with it burning for 60-120 seconds and it should help at least a little. I do it when I get a gnarly sinus infection and can't hear anything.
Amanda's last comment makes reading this blog completely fucking awesome.
I'm glad to know that I am not the only person who has a fiance who is weird about socks. Mine is constantly looking for clean socks or washing his socks when there is a big pile of clean ones and he is like, but I want THESE socks. They all look the same to me. And he asks for new socks every Christmas and talks about how he needs more socks, and the socks are taking over the bedroom! I think he secretly wants to just wear them once and get rid of them and always where new socks.
seriously i don't know much about physics but how the fuck does putting a cigarette in your ear help matters? i once read a piece of erotica where some woman liked to have cigarette smoke exhaled into her vag; maybe that was to clear up a yeast infection for all i know!
Ok, so it might not really be the point of your post, but oh my god the ear candles. I've done them because I get kind of deaf, but one day, after going in the ocean, I couldn't hear and it lasted for WEEKS and finally, my husband forced me to go to the ear doctor where I was CERTAIN they'd tell me I was just deaf in one ear now.
Turns out, some people have "special wax" that is extra sticky and, you know, sticks in your ear, which is a problem. Some people have wax that is like a sponge and absorbs water. And SOME people (like ME) have both, so it's extra sticky and spongey and they pulled a gob out that was the size of a blueberry. The end.
(PS it was AWESOME.)