You’ve been told for years that you’re not supposed to clean your ear canal with a cotton swab. It’s dangerous and not very effective…. but it feels so good! So you do it anyway, day after day. The ...

Most of us have done it. After a shower, you grab a cotton swab, tilt your head, and twist it gently inside your ear. It feels satisfying, almost like a ritual. The cotton comes out with a hint of ...

You've probably used cotton swabs to clean your ears. Here's why ENTs say you shouldn't. (Getty Images) "Don’t put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear." It's the kind of thing you may have ...

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A real-life horror tale that’s gotten renewed media attention this week is sure to make you think twice about digging earwax out of your ears. An Australian woman says she developed a life-threatening ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. The doctors’ advice hasn’t changed much, but ...

We all know that you’re not supposed to clean your ears with a Q-tip. And yet, people still do it all the time. Surely you’ve heard the horror stories about a friend of a friend of a friend piercing ...

A man in England has sworn off cleaning his ears with cotton swabs after developing a potentially life-threatening infection that not only affected his hearing, but also spread to the lining of his ...

After experiencing painful infections, hearing loss, and a seizure, doctors discovered a piece of the cotton swab lodged in the man's ear canal, surrounded by wax and debris Joelle Goldstein is a ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A man in England has sworn off cleaning his ears with cotton swabs after developing a potentially ...

The doctors’ advice hasn’t changed much, but it’s still so unsatisfying: You should not use cotton swabs to clean your ears. Updated clinical guidelines published Tuesday in the journal Otolaryngology ...