What should you do when your ear gets clogged?

Qtips are not designed to go in the ear. By pushing them in you are packing down the wax into the ear canal making things worse. You also risk perforating your ear drum which is bad.

Thanks, @Lightlyseared. I already know that it was the wrong thing to do – the bleeding was an obvious sign – which is why I am asking this question.

Bleeding? Sticking things in your ear won’t unblock it. It’s probably caused by your eustachian tubes, not something you can reach from the ear canal.

Chew some gum next time. You can try some antihistamine if it lasts a long time, or even nose spray like Afrin, but I wouldn’t drug yourself up the first second it happens.

@JLeslie thanks! I’ll try that.

There are all kinds of good tips about what you “should do” when your ear is blocked, including proper irrigation techniques and compounds that can help help to liquefy the wax (cerumen) to enable it to drain.

But I’ll tell you what I “actually do”, and which has worked well for me for many years, with no ill effects: I take a couple of squares of toilet tissue and fold them to make a single square. Then I fold across the diagonal twice and twist the ends as tightly as possible so that I have a paper “screw” ... and I “screw that into my ear canal” after a shower. It sounds on its face as though it would be dangerous (screwing something into your ear? yeah), and there are risks: the paper could disintegrate, leaving pieces stuck to the wax in my ear, or it could become lodged in other ways, or I could (conceivably) screw it into and even through my ear drum.

But none of that has happened yet. What does happen is that the “screwing action” does tend to penetrate the cerumen dam, or at least start to, and the material starts to adhere to the paper. At some point the arrangement starts to feel uncomfortably close to my ear drum (there’s plenty of warning), and I simply pull it straight out. It seems to work very well, and even if it doesn’t completely void my ear canal, it removes the blockage, and the next few attempts pull out more, if any is left.

When I no longer feel discomfort, or when the tissue comes back relatively clean, then I stop.

@CWOTUS thanks for the suggestion.

See a doctor. The things that you did by instinct can cause a lot of pain and irreparable damage. A doctor can remove the blockage with techniques that cause no damage, and that you can’t use at home.

I guess the upside is that you won’t be able hear your doctor as well when s/he shouts at you for having made these choices!

Get a rubber squeeze bulb (available at you drug store) and flush the ear out with warm water. When I do it, it takes about 20 squirts to clear the wax clog.

If your ears are getting clogged because you are a heavy earwax generator (as I am), get the Murine ear drops and the bulb syringe. Use the ear drops to loosen up the ear wax, and then use the syringe to flush out your ears.

You may have to do this a few times, but it is a lot better and safer than gouging your ears with a Q-Tip to the point of bleeding.

@dappled_leaves I was panicking. If it hadn’t stopped after a few minutes I probably would still be panicking and hurting myself. It’s a completely unbearable feeling to me.

I will see if they have bulb syringes at my drug store. I already have the plunger kind but have never had success dislodging wax with it.

I frequently clean my ears with a q-tip. One day 20 years ago I really did it and went deaf for 5 hours In the emergency ward at midnight to 5 am. The doctor flushed my ears and everything was fine. I still use q-tips in my ear and I’m an expert.

I can relate to how you felt. While probably not the same cause as yours, I suffer from Eustachian Tube Dysfunction (ETD).

One ear canal occasionally gets clogged up and creates excruciating pain. On a couple of occasions, it was due to an inner ear infection. After many exams by a variety of doctors over 10 years, one said that there was scarring in the Eustachian tube, probably caused by early childhood ear infections. The tube was narrower, thus causing blockage and pressure that didn’t rear its ugly head until I was in my late 20s and flying multiple times a week.

If it happens again, please make a doctor’s appt. Please do not attempt to clear it with a Q-Tip or, worse yet, by using an ear candle.

Place your thumb & forefinger in a nipping motion onto your nose & take a deep steady breath.
This won’t get rid of the blockage in your ear, but the fart it causes will.

Well, I go to a doctor.

But you could try warm water.

May I ask why it freaks you out?

Chew something like gum or whatever. That can help clear a blockage. Hold your nose and blow. That can help clear that feeling that your ears are blocked too. It could just be a pressure thing. Like when you fly.

If your ears really are blocked, you can get a spray from the chemist that will loosen up any wax build up. And if that doesn’t help, see your doctor.

I hope you haven’t damaged your ear. To make it bleed sounds like you really went to town!

@all these are all great suggestions. Hopefully next time I have this problem I will have the presence of mind to try them out before jamming things into the side of my head.

I don’t know why it makes me freak out. I’m honestly just glad that it didn’t happen in public.

I just want to clarify that Afrin is for your nose, you don’t put it in your ear.

Why were you freaking out so much, did it hurt?

Yeah I concur with the people that said to use a syringe.
I used to lose hearing in one ear and the doctor would just tilt my head to the side with the affected ear facing downward and he’d squirt a little salt water up into the ear then let it drain onto a napkin he was holding below my ear and after flushing it a few times he’d show me a little piece of ear wax that came out onto the napkin.
He said it was stuck to my eardrum and that I could just get a small syringe and do it myself at home next time if I wanted.
I remember that it takes a little while after for the hearing to return, like an hour maybe? At least that was my experience
Good luck.

I agree with @kritiper. The squeeze bulb has always worked for me. My ears don’t get clogged too often, but it’s happened. It doesn’t help that I have oddly-angled ear canals that make cleaning them out more difficult than for a normal person.

When you say “clogged,” do you mean plugged, or like you have water in your ear? The last few weeks, off and on, I feel water in my ears, for no reason. Would rinsing them help?

@Dutchess_III I mean plugged, like with wax. After I posted this question, it’s only gotten to be an issue if I lie down with that ear on the pillow. After I get up and move around a while it clears on its own.

Your description indicates that you have a partial blockage, that probably clears by the amount of a pinhead or so when it “clears” currently. (This is not a medical opinion, obviously, just the realization of one who has been in your shoes.)

I would recommend that you take some safe action to effect more clearing, because otherwise as more cerumen is being produced it is going to get to a “fully blocked” condition again before too much longer.

Incidentally, a doctor I trusted once told me that this is a racial / genetic issue, and that folks of European descent suffer from this kind of waxy buildup more than many other races. For example, compared to those of Asian descent, whose cerumen typically forms into balls and simply drops out of the open end of the ear canal from time to time.