Is There A Solution To Earwax Accumulation

Ravenslore

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@rei By "unwinding fascial tension" do you mean, like, doing face relaxing exercises like those meditations in yoga?

@Dave Clark I eat a pasture raised egg first thing every morning, but I can try adding some lecithin powder to my diet. I've done that before and noticed no changes, although I wasn't measuring ear wax consistency as part of the effects of lecithin. So maybe I didn't notice.
 

rei

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i mean healing all postural damage the body might have, to arrive at a completely straight spine like yoga describes as being a foundation for general health. This is achieved by mobilizing the stuck fascia.
 

Deadpool

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i mean healing all postural damage the body might have, to arrive at a completely straight spine like yoga describes as being a foundation for general health. This is achieved by mobilizing the stuck fascia.
Can you elaborate? I know releasing facial tension with reichian therapy but I struggle with it
 

rei

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When you get injured and the damage does not heal correctly the fascial network will realign and adapt to support the new posture. Chronic tension leads to fibrotic, calcifying changes, myofascial adhesions etc. that passively support instead of needing active support with muscle etc. When it has happened there needs to be a metabolic shift to open a "window of opportunity" combined with physical movement to unwind the tension to re-mobilize and correct the posture. Sometimes enough external force alone can achieve the same, ie. chiropractic treatment can forcefully do the same without the "unwinding"

search my post history for "chiropractic yoga" or youtube/google for "myofascial unwinding" for a look at the concept.

I don't know why 90+% of the population has easily observable chronic postural damage nowadays, i can only guess childhood vaccinations put the body in such a weak state that injuries don't heal correctly and people grow up with them becoming chronic.
 

CreakyJoints

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Sorry to revive this thread, but I went to an ENT to get my ears cleaned recently and have some information which may be useful.

Firstly, I thought this might have been common knowledge, but q-tips are an absolutely dreadful idea, as they often (always?) push some wax further into the ear canal, causing the bits you miss to slowly harden and accumulate over time. Ear-plugs and ear-phones which go deep into the canal are also bad for this reason - plugs that seal the outside (the concha) are better, as are over-ear headphones - although you need to be careful with the kind of earplugs which seal the concha area because these can sometimes cause issues with pressure.

Secondly, hydrogen peroxide solutions can help, but it is somewhat dependent on the formation of the wax you have. The specialist who treated me noted that in cases of dry, flaky wax like mine, these might be something of a hindrance, and the wax will just move about into unwelcome places. They do work for some people, though. It's best, he told me, to give your ears the best chance of cleaning this out on their own. In cases where the wax build up is too high, a drop or two of olive oil solution (the kind you might buy in a pharmacy, not full olive oil) can help. I think the viscosity of full oil might have been his concern, so a solution is preferable.

I was then told that carefully rubbing a miniscule amount of moisturizer outside the ear canal can help - do not put it inside, just around it, and very little. He said something with fewer ingredients is better, then mentioned a few commonly-available brands. I asked if coconut oil might achieve the same thing, but he was very very dubious about that. Again, perhaps this was due to concerns with viscosity, but I'm not entirely sure.

I had microsuction cleaning applied on one ear - it was uncomfortable and very loud, but the improvement afterwards was enormous. I saw that he had removed a ball of wax around 1-2cm in size, with lots of different colours on it (so I presume different layers of wax had stuck together over time). There are risks associated with this kind of cleaning, but it can be very helpful in certain situations.
 

Ravenslore

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I went to an ENT also, in addition to another doctor, within the past two weeks. They said a lot of the same things, which was a bummer because I already know and practice most of that. I haven't used q-tips or ear buds since I was a kid, so it's not that for me.

They also cleaned my ears. They did it with water and it felt amazing and removed a lot. They said that it looked like I had layers and layers of dry skin rolled up in there. Everyone who looked at them commented on how dry they were.

I think fractionated coconut oil might be the right viscosity, although I'm not sure if the anti fungal qualities of it might be a good thing or a bad thing.

I'm using an olive oil ear drop with garlic and oregano from Sprout's. I suppose that's also anti fungal, so I guess that's ok. So far the main things that seem to help are small amounts of the ear oil and laying my head on a heating pad for 20 minutes. That's the only thing that significantly relieves it.
 

Gigs

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I remember seeing a video of Dr. Jonathan Wright, where he said that ear wax accumulation was the result of not enough choline/lecithin in the diet. Not sure how true that is, but it sort of makes sense since those compounds are emulsifying and may thin out the wax so that it does not get hard and accumulate. Enough eggs in the diet should fix that problem.
My husband eats eggs almost every day. Still got great clumps of oily wax out of his ear (one more than the other) using the Irrigator I referenced above.
 

Dave Clark

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My husband eats eggs almost every day. Still got great clumps of oily wax out of his ear (one more than the other) using the Irrigator I referenced above.
If I recall correctly, he wasn't saying that the choline or lecithin would 'get rid of' ear wax, only that it would allow the wax to not get hard and become a problem. I haven't studied earwax, lol, but I think having it is normal, but having it get hard and become an issue where you have to go to a doctor to flush it out is not normal ear wax metabolism. If the was comes out on its own, I think that there is no issue and that is what the wax
is supposed to do, and the choline/lecithin helps keep the wax soft and flexible for natural removal. That's what I think he was saying.
 

Gigs

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If I recall correctly, he wasn't saying that the choline or lecithin would 'get rid of' ear wax, only that it would allow the wax to not get hard and become a problem. I haven't studied earwax, lol, but I think having it is normal, but having it get hard and become an issue where you have to go to a doctor to flush it out is not normal ear wax metabolism. If the was comes out on its own, I think that there is no issue and that is what the wax
is supposed to do, and the choline/lecithin helps keep the wax soft and flexible for natural removal. That's what I think he was saying.
It didnt seem like, in my husband's case, he could wait for "natural removal". If that means the body deals with it naturally? His ears (one more than the other) were feeling really blocked, as though he had swum and they was water lodged) and he had to go the Removal Kit route. (With a little of the nausea they warn about during the "operation") He was astonished at how clear his hearing was afterwards and realized they'd been building up for awhile.
 

Dave Clark

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It didnt seem like, in my husband's case, he could wait for "natural removal". If that means the body deals with it naturally? His ears (one more than the other) were feeling really blocked, as though he had swum and they was water lodged) and he had to go the Removal Kit route. (With a little of the nausea they warn about during the "operation") He was astonished at how clear his hearing was afterwards and realized they'd been building up for awhile.
At that point, no. Dr. Wright's point was about prevention, not treating it acutely.
 

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