Whenever your ears feel scratchy, or you feel like having water inside – you reach for a cotton swab to clean them. However, doing this you might actually do more harm to your body than good.

Here’s why.

The ears are very sensitive canals and organs with high possibility of infections and inflammations. The ear mucus, which is yellowish and you think that you should never meet it in the ear canal is actually really necessary, because it literally “catches” all the bacteria which try to infect the ear canal and enter your organism through the ear hole.

That’s why you should never try reaching further down your ear hole, because you might end up helping the way to those bacteria to reach where they couldn’t because of the ear mucus. Even if you’re using cotton swabs to occasionally clean your ear canals, never reach deeper than you could normally reach with your finger.

They push the earwax deeper inside the ear canal and graze the sensitive ear drums. This can seriously harm your hearing abilities.

Also, you could irritate your ear canal with the cotton swabs because they make a friction inside the canal. Very often usage of cotton swabs can take out the basic and necessary earwax, which can make the ear canal very dry and lead to the creation of fungus inside the ear.

This can be a painful process to heal, mostly because you have to lie down for couple of days and use oils to restore the dryness and oily level, which is normal for the ear canal.

Here is an ending tip – Don’t use cotton swabs! If you feel an urge to clean you ear, better do it with a soft cotton piece of cloth, or, just visit an ambulance where they can wash off your ear.

Also, here’s one natural remedy tip. You can use a piece of garlic which you put on a thread, to both clean the ears and prevent infection, because garlic is famous for its antiseptic abilities.

Sources:

https://www.healthline.com/

www.sun-gazing.com/

https://www.livestrong.com/