Recently, a 61 year old aunt Xu in Wuhan, Hubei Province, was diagnosed with ear canal cancer due to her habit of picking out her ears frequently for 30 years.
Many people have the habit of pulling out their ears. They think that earwax is excess garbage secreted by their ears and should be cleaned up at all times. However, experts say that earwax is not only not dirty, but also maintains a certain amount, which has the effect of antibacterial and protecting the ear canal. Frequent cleaning is not conducive to the protection of the ear buds.
frequent ear pulling is harmful:
1. It is easy to damage the skin of external auditory canal. If the earwax is hard or too much, it is easy to scratch the skin, and bacteria will enter the wound to cause infection. Or because of scratching back and forth, bacteria are squeezed into hair follicles and sebaceous ducts, causing inflammation and running water. In serious cases, boils and swelling of the external auditory canal occur.
2. Because it often irritates the skin of the external auditory canal, it causes blood stasis on the skin, resulting in increased secretion and serious accumulation of earwax. In other words, the more earwax you dig out, the more.
3. Often pulling out the ear stimulates chronic inflammation of the tympanic membrane. The tympanic membrane becomes red and thick, and a small amount of pus will also flow out of the external auditory canal.
In fact, under normal circumstances, even if you don’t take it out, earwax will fall out. Earwax will slowly move from the inside of the ear canal to the mouth of the ear canal and accumulate to a certain extent. Through the movement of the mandibular joint during chewing, it will continue to fall off and drain out of the ear, so there is no need to worry about blocking the ear canal a healthy external auditory canal has a self-cleaning function. If you blindly take it out, you may be self defeating and make ear wax come out because if you take out your ears with a cotton swab, you may not only fail to take out the earwax, but also push them inward, so that the earwax cannot be discharged by yourself. Once water enters the ears carelessly when washing hair or bathing, the earwax will absorb water and expand. The acidic earwax will corrode the skin deep in the ear canal and cause inflammation.
Moreover, frequent ear removal can also cause abnormal secretion of earwax. The longer the earwax may be, the more the newly secreted earwax will change from the original flake into a chip, thus reducing the ability to protect the ear. Therefore, it’s best not to pull out your ears. If your ears are wet when you wash your hair and bath, you can only wipe the position of your auricles with a cotton swab at most. If ear wax blocks the ear canal, you can go to the hospital for treatment. The otolaryngologist will take out the earwax with professional forceps under the direct vision of the frontal mirror.
reminder: although it is a good habit to clean your ears, because the skin of our external auditory canal is relatively thin and closely connected with the cartilage membrane, it can be said that it is a relatively fragile nerve. Moreover, the external auditory canal itself has a self-cleaning function, so it is unnecessary to clean it often.
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