• BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    70
    ·
    3 days ago

    Q-tips suck at cleaning ear canals. All they do is push the damn ear wax further up inside, worsening my already bad tendency to get impacted wax in the first place. I can only imagine that people who use q-tips to clean have these cavernous canals that make family guy’s ear-sex joke actually possible.

    It’s why I use those meant-for-glasses tiny screwdrivers.

    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      3 days ago

      I have a big head and have never understood this impacted wax you normies are always complaining about, so this Cavernous Canal Hypothesis actually makes a lot of sense to me.

      • BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        3 days ago

        It’s much, much quicker, simpler, and easier to reach into the ear canal and gently scrape out the wax. The few times I used any fluid, it was a tiresome affair, and it never really got out all of the wax that could start to build. You would have to do it every other day to prevent real buildup, and that would be a gigantic pain.

        • toynbee@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          3 days ago

          Oh, I don’t disagree regarding regular use being a pain. I used 3 q-tips after every shower (one per ear for the various crevasses, then the opposite ends of a shared one to - as you say - scoop from the main canal). For at least two reasons I wouldn’t want to use peroxide that way every day.

          However, twice in my life I’ve gotten my ears clogged to the point that q-tips just made it worse. In both of those cases, peroxide worked miracles.

          • BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            3 days ago

            The peroxide didn’t work for me once the wax became impacted. Maybe if I had repeated it several times in the course of a day, but it was easier to just repeat the trip to the doctor to have them get it out. Losing your hearing absolutely sucks, and I didn’t want to delay getting it back.

            • toynbee@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              6
              ·
              3 days ago

              For me, the impaction was only mitigated after leaving the peroxide in for an extended period.

              I did have a pool-related impaction one other time before I started using q-tips regularly. I went to the doctor for that and they pushed it out using some kind of manual water pump. It worked and the obstruction came out of my ear, but until that happened it felt like earwax (and water) were going to come out of my nose. I don’t know if that’s normal, but it was unpleasant.

              One last mostly unrelated (and entirely unprompted) aside: my first encounter (that I remember, at least) with q-tips was right when I was a boy approaching puberty. My mother cleaned my ears with wet q-tips and I complained of the unpleasant feeling. She told me “if you don’t keep your ears clean, no girl will ever stick her tongue down your ear!” At the time it sounded nice just to have any contact with a girl, but now that I’m an adult I have to avoid wondering about that sentence that my mother said to me.

              • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                3 days ago

                I had a girlfriend when I was 16 that started licking my ear then tongued my ear hole while I was on the phone with my mom lying about where I was.

                I’m 41 now and no one has ever done that again. It was unique.

                • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  5
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  I have licked an ear in an intimate situation. It wasn’t too uncomfortable for me, and it was something they enjoyed the sensation of.

                  Tongue-ing the ear hole though??? That’s fuckin evil.

                • toynbee@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  ·
                  3 days ago

                  When I was in my early twenties, a girl I had a crush on but who was dating my friend came up behind me and scritched my head. I’m married to a different woman now and have a kid, but I still wonder about that interaction. I can relate.