Cleaning your ears safely is a difficult process to begin on without damaging your ears or leaving a lasting impression on their functionality in the long term. Here are some tips on ear care that you can practice at home without putting your ears in danger.
What damages your ear?
Damaging your ear often comes from stress, harsh contact, or unreleased tension from loud noises. Concerts and live sporting events play into this heavily.
You have to be mindful of what type of events you are going to. Putting in ear plugs will greatly reduce the amount of exposure and long term damage your ear sustains. Pay mind to how they adjust to situations and if you are listening to music too loudly on your own as well.
How can I clean my ears more efficiently?
Be careful with what instruments you use, and avoid jamming any objects into your ears. These will often jam earwax deeper into the ear and create further muffling and lack of clarity. Softening the wax in your ear is the best way to get it out as a first step, which starts with hydrogen peroxide or other chemical solutions.
This should be a quick remedy that only takes a few applications, once a day for a few days to a week. Keeping your ears clean needs to be a careful and meticulous process. Otherwise, you will see more damage develop for the eardrum.
Permanent damage vs temporary
Both types of damage are common for people who are exposed to concerts or live events. Most often, the damage sustained is temporary unless it becomes habitual. Going to concerts every here and there and not wearing the proper protection will give you temporary damage at the very least. However, as stated before, it shouldn’t sustain for extended periods unless concerts and lack of safety precautions becomes a habit.
How do you identify damage? There are several minor and severe symptoms.
Eardrum damage symptoms
Speech clarity- when speaking with someone, take note of how often they have to repeat themselves. Are conversations seemingly more unclear in general? Are you having trouble identifying not just what quiet people are saying, but anyone you’re speaking with overall?
Volume settings – These settings are a great measuring stick for how your hearing is. You’re likely familiar with how often you turn up and turn down the volume on shows and movies. Has this changed recently? Do you find yourself needing to turn up the volume more often than not? Consider how it’s changed over the last month, three months, or even the last year. This will be a strong indicator for how your hearing has changed.
Musician issues – musicians are often subject to more noise than a great deal of patients. Similar to machine workers or those who work in factory assembly, they are exposed to a consistent barrage of noise. Unfortunately, this becomes the norm, and the body is forced to adjust. In this adjustment comes a bit more comfortability with expectation. Since their work relies on them being exposed to this noise, they feel they have to deal with it and just let it go.
This mentality is a common one, and is not healthy for either party. You will no longer see the results you are looking for and suffer because of it. One of the minor symptoms of these issues is a ringing in the ears that is similar to the condition called tinnitus. If you have previously had tinnitus, think you are suffering from its symptoms, or are having other issues, seek out professional assistance as early as possible.
Any questions? Give us a call today and we’ll get started on amending your ear troubles. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
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