Q-tips are bad for your ears.
~sponsored links~
Ok. I know it’s weird, but let’s talk Q-tips. When you see these things, what do you think they’re for? I mean, I’ve ALWAYS thought they were for cleaning your ears out. Well, I’ve known for years that it’s bad to use them, there really is a warning on the box telling you NOT to stick them in your ears. They can damage the ear canal, etc…
I’ve never taken this advice. I mean… they’re Q-tips! It’s like they are subliminally telling you: “CLEAN YOUR EARS WITH ME, MAN!” — and I obey.
A couple years back I woke up one day and couldn’t hear in my one ear. And it got to the point where it sort of hurt. I also had some allergies at the time and I thought it was like a massive sinus infection, which I did indeed have…. but the Doctor checked my ear, he said —-
“Do you use Qtips?” —
“Uh. Yeah, well, sometimes” — (I was lying, I use them EVERY DAY)
“Well, don’t use them, they pack wax back in, just like you’re packing a cannon.”
“You pack cannons?”
–doctor stares blankly at me.
So, instead of referring me to an ear specialist or ear doctor person, he decided to get a little tray and this syringe looking thing and some peroxide and he totally blasted my ear out…. and I was shocked at what came out of my ear. It was a wonder that I could hear ANYTHING! My ear hurt for like a day from irritation, but I could hear much better.
You’d think I’d NEVER use Qtips again… but in fact, that incident has made me want to use them even more. Only more carefully as to not pack my ear like a cannon. This past week we were out of Qtips and I was weirding out about it. I almost have this fear of my ear clogging up like that again,— even though I think I’m helping myself, I’m probably just packing it back in there again.
My wife says your ears clean themselves naturally or some crap. I don’t buy it. There’s only a few things grosser than sticking your pinky in your ear and taking out a gob of wax– right??
Gross.. I know. Sorry. Q-tips….
Even grosser? I’m just reminded of a kid I knew in 7th grade who would lick his ear wax and he told me his ear wax was like “hot sauce” and his boogers were like the “mild sauce” at Del Taco. (HEY! Del Taco/Naugles! Where my boys at!? woot-woot!)
Recent Topics: Q-tips, Ear Care, ear wax, ears, ear doctor
January 11th, 2006 at 4:17 am
That… is a weird story.
To be sure.
January 11th, 2006 at 4:22 am
same thing happened to me, more then once, some doctors say to use q-tips and some don’t but you can buy an ear cleaning water bulb thing, and though it’s been a while be sure i have one in my cupboard
January 11th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Hey drew long time no post, happy new year.
Yeah i use q tips for some craft related things but really i dont think they are made for anything other than sticking them in your ear. Ears are supposed to get washed out every time you wash your hair but that doesnt help much of the internet demographic. I get really stressed out when i dont have them at home, they are such a comforter
January 11th, 2006 at 7:15 am
“You pack cannons?” -I just laughed my ass off at that one
As for q-tips, didnt know they were dangerous unless you actually jammed them down your ear in an attempt at suicide, althugh it could explain why im partially deaf in one ear
either way, i’ll stick with q-tips rather than putting liquid in my ear, kinda freaks me out for some reason
January 11th, 2006 at 7:31 am
OMG, I just wandered over this way…I had an experience simmilar to that. However, mine has to do with my oldest child, then 6 years old. I took him to a pediatrician to get his yearly checkup done. When this doctor looked into his ear, he had compacted wax as well. Now, you have to understand, I think I used a q-tip ONCE in his tiny 6 yr life….and I think that was when he was 4 and the outside of the ear needed cleaning. I asked the doctor “what kind of things can cause that?” She snipped off, very rudely “you use Q-tips in his ears” and litterally stormed out of the room. Needless to say, I never saw her again. When I took him back to a different doctor, it turns out my son had cronic ear infections (that were not caught, in spite of many trips to the hospital) and it was just his ear’s way of protecting the eardrum.
So, moral of the story is? You can’t always blame the Q-tip
January 11th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Man, I could go for a Big Fat Taco right now.
January 11th, 2006 at 7:58 am
I just thought of a legitimate use for them, dna swabbing! Well i guess all sorts of swabbing, like for bacteria. We used that shit in a lab to test for contaminants. Man i fully missed the you pack canons joke but it has been a real value adder since i got it.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:20 am
That’s hilarious. I know I’m not supposed to use them, but I DO - I use them because I hate liquid in my ears! I’ll never use drops. Nothing beats a good Q-Tip after you get out of the shower. And your wax is all warm and ready for swabbin’. Arrrr.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:52 am
I don’t use Q-Tips, mainly because I think that you’re more likely to “pack cannons” with them than get anything out and because I suffered from ear infections when I was a kid and had an experience or two like Drew and came to view my ear cleaning system (with the blue bulb that squirts water) as my friend.
But then… If you’re not supposed to clean your ears with them, what are Q-Tips for? We used them in art class to blend our shadings of pencil drawings better, but you’re not going to find them in art supplies when you go to the store. They’re in the health/beauty/toiletries section. They are obviously designed to stick in your ear.
Could it be something more insidious like the manufacturers are making a product they know is bad for us like the tobacco companies? Are Q-Tips that profitable that they have their own congressional lobby pacs? Do the manufacturers fudge research done on their products, and try to market to children to get them hooked early, and we just never noticed? Should I have more caffeine in the morning before reading this comic? The world may never know.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:03 am
Pack a cannon, *grins* good analogy…
“prepajahr… plug!”
“insejarht ….plug! ”
*squish, squish* “moment Sarge.. the lads are a bit dry today…”
You get that when you use them incorrectly, actually.
It’s in not touching the sides, then out with a rotating motion, between forefinger and thumb, resting your other fingers on your head so you can.t jar the thing around.
Ancient nursing 101, but since when did Doctors ever listen to nurses.. *shrug*
January 11th, 2006 at 9:27 am
And so Drew Finally slips up.
I use Q-tips every other day, and my hearing is crazy good. I can hear those annoying high-pitched sounds that electronics make and nobody else can hear.
“Can I replace this damned monitor already?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Are you DEAF? It’s like a thousand mosquitos are raping my ear canal!”
January 11th, 2006 at 9:47 am
I jam them in my ears all the time. But maybe I’ll give it a second thought now. I hads a teacher in high school that warned us against pushing them too deep in the ear. She did it and had seriouse damaged her ear pretty badly.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Hey now Grumblin!! Don’t go there with the Nursing 101 comment. What I want to know is, what would Doctors do without us……… ? Yeah, that’s what I thought!
; )
January 11th, 2006 at 10:43 am
I never used Q-tips in my ears cause the box told me not to. I *still* had the exact same giant gob of wax experience you did, with the peroxide and the little tray and all. This was back in grad school, like maybe ‘93 or so.
The doctor asked me if I used Q-tips, and I said, “no.” She didn’t know what to say next — she was completely unprepared for the notion that someone could get a giant packed in wax gob and not be using q-tips. She just said “well, don’t.”
I use Q-tips now and I never got the wax thing again. I think the connection between the two is completely bogus. I think that the Q-tips company expects everyone to use them in their ears but puts the warning on there to cover their ass if somebody rams a q-tip into their brain or something.
January 11th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Didn’t Greg Dean do this joke already?
January 11th, 2006 at 10:58 am
A thing kinda like this happened to a friend of mine in highschool, but it wasnt his ear or wax, so i guess it wasnt really like it..anyway. Well for years this guy couldnt breathe out his nose and since he couldnt ever remember breathing out his nose he thought it was normal. One day he went to the doctors and they found a tumor in there and then removed it a short time later. Needless to say he had about a 15 year supply of snot stored up in there. After that one of his favorite things to do in class after this was to pull out nose rockets literally 4 to 6 inches long. Just thought i would share that…
January 11th, 2006 at 11:00 am
You know… I am fully aware that doctors are higly trained and schooled in keeping us working the way we are supposed to, but people have been sticking Q-tips into their ears since the dawn of time..well…since they’ve been created anyway. I think is just an anti Q-Tip campaign created by the doctors so that you will go to them to get your ears cleaned, thus landing them an extra $500 just to super soaker you in the head execution style. I think they all have a global bet to see who can get the most suckers to stop using them. The side effect would be to drive the various corps to stop selling them, allowing the doctors to start writing prescriptions for ‘medical ear cleaning implements’ that would look like Q-Tips, but would really be all the left over pap-smear sticks and DNA swabs that they didn’t use in the 60’s and 70’s.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I’m more interested in getting my hands on some hot sauce tasting ear wax. I love Del Taco! Where else can you get french fries and a taco at the same place?
January 11th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Stragler– I don’t read Greg’s comic… but I’m SURE there are other comics out there about qtips and this problem/
YOu know what gets me? They sell the Qtips like right near the toiletry stuff, AND right near the ear drops as well. So, if the box says not to use it in your ears, that’s a hell of a place to put it!
bonus note… I know professional inkers who use Qtips to fill in large areas of black ink.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:37 am
Qtips for inking? Why not just use a large brush?
Crazy people. Using Qtips for weird things…
*sticks one in ear; swabs*
January 11th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Wow… that’s weird… you posted this right as I’m getting over pretty much exactly the same thing. Only it was a friend who gave me the ear-de-gooperizer stuff and I did it myself (ironically, after letting my ear drain, I used a q-tip to remove the “stragglers” of the ear-goop population).
January 11th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
I use Q-Tips. Not so much for cleaning out wax, but to sop up the water that’s in my ear after a shower. I think it’s gross to use a towel to clean it out.
Plus, if my ear is scratchy, Q-Tips are the perfect solution! But then again, Q-Tips could be the reason my ears are so scratchy to begin with!
January 11th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Personally, I use them to clean guns. Little bastards get dirty in places you can’t reach without them.
January 11th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
I get the gob of wax thing every couple of months or so. Mix some hydrogen peroxide with warm water, use the bulb syringe thingy, comes right out. The only thing I use Qtips for is cleaning off computer components when I’m fidding around inside my case.
January 11th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
There actually is an easier, awesomer, and doctor approved way of cleaning your ears out- and it’s via SuperSoaker.
January 11th, 2006 at 3:44 pm
I had the same thing happen to me as a child and I didn’t use Q-tips either. I use them now though and haven’t had it since. Uncorrelated? I think so. Packing a cannon? Well seeing as I’m using the Q-tip to scrape the was OUT of my ear…I don’t think the analogy is quite correct.
January 11th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
You have to try ear candling.
You can buy them at alternative health store type places. It essentially involves sticking a canvas cone into your ear, lighting it, and letting the heat draw a ton of wax from deep in your ear.
Searching online shows some naysayers on the subject, probably sponsored by doctors that would prefer to do the procedure with their expensive little blasting equipment.
You also need to make sure to do it properly. We’ve actually had ear candling parties at my house, we all lay around with little fires coming from our heads, pretty hilarious, but damn it feels good after you do it.
I think Q-Tips are okay in ears, just no “in” your ear, like in the actual inner canal. Hot showers cause a natural drainage, makes my ears itch and I gotta swab.
Don’t cram that stuff in there, just give yourself a nice rim job. ;D
January 11th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Ah yes because nothing says ’safety’ like sticking a lit match in your ear
January 11th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
I actually know quite a few people who use the ear candles, and I’ve heard nothing but good things. Except when my roomie’s helper did something wrong and a big gob of hot wax hit her in the cheek, hehe.
On the Q-Tip subject, I had a teacher that used them constantly, and one day during class he left one in his ear to get something out of a cabinet and WHAM, smashed it into his head with the cabinet. He luckily ended up being fine, but he damn near burst his ear drum, the genius.
On another note, I use Q-tips daily and I’ve never had any sort of gobbing issues. Few things feel better than Q-tipping first thing in the morning or right after a shower. Aaaahhhh.
January 11th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
When I was little my mom would go in my ear with friggin’ tweezers and pull out these crazy huge globs of wax… maybe I should do that myself now, ’cause after reading this I got an irresistible urge to swab my ear with a Q-tip and afterwards I heard this crackling sound like right in my ear canal.
January 11th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
Oh man, I use Q-tips everyday!! Guess I better stop, don’t want to be labeled a “canon packer”!
“You pack canons?” That’s great. I just picture this guy in a fake Abe Lincoln beard and a white coat in this really bad Civil War reanacment!
January 11th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Wow, my mom told me that exact story. Its eriee how identical it is. The OCD use of q-tips, the loss of hearning, the pain, the figuring it was a major sinus infection, taking the trip to the doctor. She even said something like, “It was amazing how much crap came out of my ear.” (I had this funny image of things like tire irons and car keys comming out of her ear, but apparently that wasn’t exactly how the ear cleaning incident of ‘02 went down.)
Anyway, I almost killed myself laughing when I read todays comic. My mom and I have that same conversation many a time (where she freaks out at me for using q-tips). Amused the hell out of me.
January 11th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
For a while people — and by people I mean *crazy* people — were sticking CANDLES in their friggin ears and lighting them. Yes, they put lit candles in their ears to *BURN* the wax out.
Then the doctors started saying — hey, that’s not so good for you… have you tried Q-Tips?
January 11th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
On more thing… go rent Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and watch it *before* you get a chance to buy more Q-Tips.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:56 am
Glad to know I’m not the only one with the Q-Tip Monkism.
Can’t wait for my doctor’s visit…yeah!
Naugles! Woot!!!
January 12th, 2006 at 9:25 am
I think we need fan action shots here with prizes for the most creative use of a q tip.
January 12th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
On the subject of ear candles, I heard that they don’t actually work. When you’re done with them, you’re supposed to unroll them or open the shell they’re in, and there are big yellow globs on the inside that’s supposed to be wax, but I heard that if you just burn the candle without putting it near your ear, you get the same residue - impurities in the wax or whatever burning itself onto the paper.
January 13th, 2006 at 1:35 am
I just stick the tip and twist them so I can get the ear wax out. That way I don’t pack my ears like cannons
January 20th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
the readership of this series .. you people are a smart bunch. I wish I could eat dinner with y’all. mexican, of course.
January 24th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
I’d heard this before but never really believed it.
But now I do. Webcomics wouldn’t lie to me, would they?
So what the heck can you use? And where can you buy one?
I WANT TO HEAR WHAT I’VE BEEN MISSING.
December 1st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hi…Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts about Q-tips are bad for your ears. comin..holy Saturday .
December 28th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
My doctor recommended that I use q-tips in my left ear because of excessive wax in the canal. Why would a doctor recommend it if it were bad to do?