Protect your Ears

While it is important to guard your ears against infections, do not be unduly alarmed at ear wax as attempt to clean ears with ear buds may result in injury to delicate skin of ear canal
By Team Double Helical

If you experience serious pain, your ear is swollen or red, or you have a loss of hearing, you should see your doctor. An injury to the ear that causes discharge is another reason to consult a doctor.
Ear discharge is any fluid that comes from the ear. It is also known as otorrhea. Most of the time ears will discharge earwax. This is an oil that the human body naturally produces. The job of earwax is to make sure that dust, bacteria, or other foreign bodies do not get into ear.
However, other conditions, such as a ruptured eardrum, can cause blood or other fluids to drain from your ear. This is a sign that your ear has been injured or infected and requires medical attention.
Says A K Agarwal, renowned ENT surgeon and Professor of Excellence, “In most cases, discharge from ear is simply ear wax making its way out of your body. This is natural. Other conditions that can cause discharge include infection or injury.”
Ear infections are one of the most common causes of discharge from the ear. An ear infection occurs when bacteria or viruses makes their way into the middle ear. The middle ear is behind the eardrum. It contains three bones called ossicles. These are vital to hearing. Ear infections cause fluid to build up in the ear, which can lead to ear discharge.
Dr A K Agarwal adds, “Treatment of ear discharge will depend on its cause. In some cases, your condition won’t need medical treatment. Signs of an ear infection usually start to clear up within the first week or two, without any treatment. Pain medications might be necessary to deal with any pain or discomfort. If your child is under 6 months old or has a fever over 102.2°F, your doctor might prescribe antibiotic eardrops.”
Dr Achal Gulati, Principal, Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, New Delhi, informs, “Trauma to the ear canal can also cause discharge. Such trauma can occur while cleaning your ear with a cotton swab if you push it in too deep. An increase in pressure, such as when you’re flying in an airplane or scuba diving, can result in trauma to your ear. These situations may cause your eardrum to rupture or tear.”
Acoustic trauma is damage to the ear due to extremely loud noises. Acoustic trauma can also cause your eardrum to rupture. However, these cases are not as common.
Adds Dr Achal Gulati, “Otitis externa, commonly known as swimmer’s ear, occurs when bacteria or fungus infects your ear canal. It usually occurs when you spend long periods of time in water. Too much moisture inside your ear can break down the skin on the walls of your ear canal. This allows bacteria or fungus to enter and cause an infection.”
However, swimmer’s ear isn’t exclusive to swimmers. It can result whenever there’s a break in the skin of the ear canal. This might occur if you have irritated skin as a result of eczema. It can also occur if you insert a foreign object into the ear. Any damage to your ear canal makes it more susceptible to infection.
A less common cause for ear discharge is malignant otitis externa, a complication of swimmer’s ear that causes damage to the cartilage and bones in the base of the skull.
Other rare causes include a skull fracture, which is a break in any of the bones in the skull, or mastoiditis, which is an infection of the mastoid bone behind your ear.
Dr Aggarwal advises, “You should consult the doctor if the discharge from your ear is white, yellow, or bloody or if you’ve had discharge for more than five days. Sometimes ear discharge may occur with other symptoms, such as a fever. Tell your doctor if you have accompanying symptoms.”
Most cases of ear trauma also heal without treatment. If you have a tear in your eardrum that doesn’t heal naturally, your doctor might apply a special paper patch to the tear. This patch will keep the hole closed while your eardrum heals. If a patch doesn’t work, your doctor might surgically repair your ear using a patch of your own skin.
A doctor should treat swimmer’s ear to prevent the infection from spreading. Typically, your doctor will give you antibiotics in the form of eardrops to use for about a week. In severe cases, oral antibiotics will also be necessary.
To avoid ear infections, try to stay away from people who are sick. Breastfeeding provides infants with protection from ear infections, since they receive their mother’s antibodies in the milk. If you bottle-feed your baby, the Mayo Clinic advises trying to hold the infant in an upright position to prevent ear infections.
Keep foreign objects out of your ears to avoid rupturing your eardrum. If you know you’ll be in an area with excessive noise, bring ear plugs or muffs to protect your eardrums.
You can prevent swimmer’s ear by making sure to dry your ears after being in the water. Also, try to drain any water by turning your head to the side. You can also use over-the-counter medicated eardrops after swimming to control and alleviate swimmer’s ear.
Cautions Dr. Kaushal Shah, ENT Specialist, “There is a tradition in lot of families to clean ears regularly with ear buds and those who don’t do it are many times considered non-hygienic. But it may also lead to discharge and impact hearing ability. Inside ear is a very delicate structure and is likely to be damaged easily even with trivial trauma.”
First we must understand that wax has a useful role to play in the ear, it lubricates, protects and renders antiseptic property. Ears without wax feel dry and itchy. Wax is self-cleaned from our ear canal propagated by movements of the jaw. So, most of the times there is never any need to clean wax from inside the ears. Only external surface of the ear should be cleaned with cloth.
Many times attempt to clean ears with ear buds results in injury to delicate skin of ear canal and even worse it may injure the eardrum or if there is a wax chunk it may push deep into the eardrums.
Earwax needs to be cleaned only when it obstructs the sound pathway to ear drum. When there is feeling of fullness or blockage, there is partial hearing loss there is ringing in the ears, tinnitus/noise, itching or odour in the ear.

Many times home remedies are useful to remove ear wax like instilling drops of mineral oil glycerin or commercially available drops. If not successful than it should be removed by ENT surgeon. The surgeon may wash earwax out with warm water or saline. Sometimes the surgeon may remove wax by suction or microinstruments under microscope. There is no proven remedy for frequent wax impaction but it is very important to avoid inserting any object inside ear to clean wax. Those who get frequent wax impaction or using hearing aids may need to see the surgeon every 6 to 12 months to clean wax regularly.