Comment by hairywalt

This is adjacent to what I was going to comment, which is a camera for looking inside my own ears. My ears frequently got blocked and/or itchy, and I was almost addicted to sticking qtips in to try to relieve things. There are good reasons they say not to do that! I always felt like there was wax I wasn't quite able to reach, and in trying to do so I only made things worse, often causing inflammation.

The camera cost about £10 and came with a few plastic "scraper" tools (feel kinda gross to say it, heh). It allowed me to remove the wax, and importantly, visually confirm the results. Thinking about it now, it's been over a year since I last had to use it, so I think my ears might've reached a new "equilibrium" point (they are supposed to be self-cleaning, after all).

There is, presumably, a risk of damaging your ears any time you stick something in there, so I was just very careful to not do that.

In my area, they’re all labelled as “nasal syringes” because you’re not supposed to irrigate your ears randomly.

The words of my pharmacist: “I don’t recommend you use this for your ears. I do it myself, but officially I don’t recommend it”

Kinda how Q-Tips boxes mention all kinds of uses except jamming them into your ears for hygiene and pleasure.

A related trick is to put a few drops of (olive, or other cooking) oil in your ear canal. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Repeat on the other side, and do this for 3 days in a row. This softens up the hard wax in there. Then flush out with a syringe if you want. Obviously don't do either if you have a perforated ear drum.

I struggled for a long time with ear wax problems before I found the solution.

I was a <$10 plastic ear curette from Ototek. I just use it after I shower and everything is great.

Over here we have these peroxide things you can get at the pharmacy. You pour three drops in your ear, it foams up and all the wax goes away. Do you not have those?

Hey, I have just started to develop this problem and have been putting off going to the clinic. Can you link to the one you have please?