Ear-picking artifacts may be hurting your ears even more

Under normal circumstances, the ear itself has a self-cleaning function, through the cilia movement of the external ear canal, with chewing, mouth opening and other actions, earwax can be discharged by itself. Whether it is an ordinary earpicking spoon or an earpicking "artifact", it is not recommended that you pick your ears by yourself, so as not to damage the ear canal and eardrum.

"Ear picking is like looking in the mirror, so you can scratch your toes." Recently, a visual ear-picking "artifact" that can connect to a mobile phone has been popular online, with prices ranging from ten yuan to hundreds of yuan. In addition, there are other kinds of earpicking "artifacts" sold online, such as spring earpick scoop, magnifying glass light earpick scoop, earwax suction device.

The use of "artifacts" increases the risk of ear injury

At present, the visual earpick on the market basically uses a design similar to the endoscope, and the front end of the earpick is equipped with a miniature camera, which can connect to the mobile phone App. The company claims to be able to see inside the ear from the phone, allowing it to more accurately find and remove earwax.

This type of visual earpick is somewhat similar to an ear endoscope operated by a professional doctor, but compared with professional ear endoscopes, the majority of visual earpicks have very low image clarity and color recognition. In this case, it is difficult to see the situation in the ear clearly, and sometimes minor damage and bleeding can not be seen, so it is easy to injure the external ear canal and eardrum.

In addition, the image presented by the ear-picking "artifact" lens is two-dimensional, while the real ear canal is three-dimensional, so that when the operation can only see the plane, but can not perceive the depth.

The ear canal is only 2.5 cm short, and it is not straight, the "road" twists and turns. In addition, everyone's ear canal is not exactly the same, so professional doctors will be very careful when operating the ear endoscope, in the case of more trouble, but also need two doctors to work together. For different forms of earwax, the doctor may use different tools.

For ordinary people without professional anatomical knowledge, do not understand the structure of the ear canal, even if you see the eardrum, you may not be able to distinguish important parts such as the eardrum, and it is very dangerous to rashly dig.

At the same time, when many people use ordinary ear spoons to pick their ears, because they can't see the situation in the ear, they may be more cautious and dare not rush to the deep. But because of the visual image, everyone dares to dig deep into the ear canal, but increases the risk of damage to the ear canal and eardrum.

In fact, not only visual earpick scoop, such as spring earpick scoop, earwax suction device, etc., businesses will also claim that their products are safer than ordinary earpick scoop, so that ordinary people have an illusion - these earpick "artefacts" can allow us to achieve "earpick freedom", will not hurt the ear canal, and then induce consumers to pick ears recklessly.

It's usually not necessary to pick your ears too often

Although earwax is called "poop", it is not waste in the body. Earwax, technically called cerumen, is a secretion of skin glands in the cartilage of the outer ear canal that kills bacteria and moistens the ear canal.

Most people have an extremely thin layer of earwax on the surface of the outer ear canal, which forms a pale yellow or brown sheet when exposed to air.

Other people's earwax is like yellow, sticky oil, attached to the external ear canal. However, no matter what kind of earwax, it can protect the ear canal, so that the eardrum from fungi, dust, small bugs and so on. In addition, the earwax in the outer ear canal is in front of the eardrum, which allows the sound to be slowly transmitted into the eardrum, so that the eardrum is protected from severe vibration damage.

From a medical professional's point of view, there is no need to pick ears frequently. Under normal circumstances, earwax is too much, usually naturally discharged. Even if there is too much earwax and it completely blocks the external ear canal, there is no need to deal with it as long as it does not affect hearing, ear pain, cough, ear swelling and other symptoms.

Cleaning your ears often feels good, but it hurts your ears. The biggest risk of regular ear digging is that it will accidentally hurt the eardrum, causing otitis media or deafness. This situation is very common in clinical practice, such as being touched by others when picking ears, or not mastering the depth of their own, this accident may occur.

Using hard ear-picking tools such as metal, it is easy to hurt the delicate skin of the external ear canal. If the ear-picking tool has not been strictly sterilized, it is easy to bring bacteria into the ear canal, causing external otitis or chronic external otitis. If long-term seepage stimulates the ear canal, it can also cause diseases such as external ear canal eczema.

When there is too much earwax, ear congestion, ear pain or slight hearing loss, you can go to the hospital for professional cleaning. There are many reasons for excessive production of earwax, which may be caused by diseases such as external otitis and otitis media, or it may be caused by abnormalities and stenosis of the external ear canal. When cerumen embolism occurs, doctors treat it accordingly.

For example, they soften the cerumen with oil-based ear drops such as sodium bicarbonate or boric acid. Then they rinse the cerumen with water to remove it. If there is a co-infection in the ear, the doctor will address the infection before removing the cerumen.