Hi Ellen, thanks for the D2D.
You don’t actually have to do anything to get rid of the earwax in your son’s ears. Earwax contains protective natural oils to moisturize the delicate skin of the ear canal. So it is all right to have some earwax in your son’s ears.
In fact, having ears which are “too clean” may lead to the ear feeling dry and itchy. Cleaning the ear may even predispose to infection because the usual harmless bacteria that reside in your ear are cleared away, allowing harmful organisms the opportunity to grow.
The ear itself is a self-cleaning device as the skin is designed to migrate outwards over time, moving earwax out of the ear by itself. One very helpful tip that I always tell my patients is to apply a few drops of clean olive oil into each ear after their shower. This helps to keep any wax inside soft and runny so that it flows out more easily.
In some cases, when wax becomes hard and impacted, then it won’t be able to come out by itself. This is when many of my patients turn up to seek my help in removing their impacted earwax because we can do gentle suctioning under the microscope in a comfortable and pain-free manner.
