Do you clean your ears with cotton swabs? If so, stop immediately. Scientists and doctors have been saying for several years that it is harmful to clean your ears with cotton swabs and other objects. However, many people still use cotton swabs for other purposes. So, the habit of cleaning the ears with a cotton swab every day turned into a deadly threat for a young woman: doctors discovered a dangerous infectious disease in the skull of a native of Australia, which led to hearing loss.
Is it harmful to clean your ears?
Whoever says what, but the ear canal is the only place in the human body open to dirt and infections, where you cannot reach with your finger. So maybe not worth it? But then what about the sulfur plugs that can accumulate in the ears if they are not cleaned?
In fact, earwax is the natural lubricant of the ear canal. Sulfur is a viscous bond between sebum and sweat secretions. Earwax is needed to flush out dead skin cells from the ear canal. Therefore, sulfur does not accumulate in the ear, everything is exactly the opposite - the sulfur layer protects against bacteria and eliminates debris.
But cleaning the ears with a cotton swab just leads to the formation of sulfur plugs. When cleaning, a layer of sulfur is hammered into the depth of the ear, where a plug is formed, which cannot be pulled out without a doctor. Moreover, the more often you clean your ears, the more wax will be generated. This is because the skin inside the ear canal is very delicate and with any damage, the amount of sulfur will increase to protect the skin.
Human ears tend to cleanse themselves - when the jaws move, for example, when chewing food, sulfur is pushed out of the ear canal, accumulating in the auricle, which can already be cleaned calmly.
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Who said you need to clean your ears?
Today otolaryngologists all over the world are of the same opinion - there is no need to clean your ears. But why then do we do this?
Perhaps the reason lies in our hygiene habits. We brush our teeth, nose, wash our face, so why not brush our ears, since some kind of sticky thing accumulates there? At all times, there were people who liked to clean their ears with a variety of objects. It is likely that some people do this because of the frequent formation of sulfur plugs. This happens with previous diseases, structural features of the ear canal or secretion of the sulfur glands.
Why is it bad to clean your ears with cotton swabs?
To stop stuffing cotton swabs into the ear canal once and for all, it's worth reading the creepy story that happened to a 37-year-old Australian named Jasmine. Every night before going to bed, the woman not only brushed her teeth, but also her ears. Of course, with a cotton swab.
In the United States, 12.5 thousand cases of injury from cotton swabs were recorded.
Over time, she noticed that she began to hear poorly in her left ear, and finally went to the doctor. At first, the doctors assumed that she had a common infection and prescribed antibiotics for Jasmine. However, hearing problems did not go away, and blood began to appear on the cotton swabs while cleaning the ears.
After a hearing test, which revealed moderate deafness, Jasmine was sent to the otolaryngologist's office. The specialist ordered a computed tomography, which revealed the true picture: the woman had a bacterial infection that was “eating away” the skull bone behind the ear.
According to experts, due to regular cleaning of the ears with cotton swabs, cotton fibers stuck in Jasmine's ear, which led to the infection. In the end, Jasmine underwent 5-hour surgery to remove the infected tissue and reconstruct the ear canal. However, the rumor never returned to her.
And in March this year, already British doctors reported a case of a cranial infection after a cotton swab was stuck in a man's ear canal.
What are cotton swabs for?
But if cotton swabs, as the manufacturers themselves say, are not intended for cleaning the ears, what are they for then? In fact, there are many ways to use cotton swabs. They can remove the excess of any cosmetic product from a limited surface. They are also convenient for treating small wounds in case of a cut or damage to the skin.
In general, cotton swabs appeared due to the fact that their creator, named Leo Gerstenzang, saw how his wife cleans the face of their son from dirt with the help of cotton wool wound on a toothpick. So the Gerstenzang family got the opportunity not to work, and the world - cotton buds.
Be that as it may, despite the popularity and attractiveness of cotton swabs, it is still worth considering using them. The fact is that if earlier cotton swabs were made of wood, today it has been replaced by plastic. Having used a cotton swab once for its intended purpose, we ourselves, without noticing it, harm the planet.
Do you use cotton swabs?
Lyubov Sokovikova