Ten Tips About Q-Tips

There are many objects of modern commerce that have applications other than their intended use. As an author, I'm not especially happy to see my book used as a doorstop, but it's not just books that are frequently repurposed. Coffee cups double as paper weights. Newspapers, if you remember what they are, can be used for starting fires. Coffee tables are used as leg rests. Alka-Seltzer becomes a diet drink. Duct tape is used for, well, everything.

It's relatively rare, however, for the main use of an object to be precisely something the manufacturer warns against, as is the case with the use of Q-tips for cleaning the ear canal.

Most People Ignore Warnings About How to Use Q-Tips

The manufacturers of Q-tips intend for their products to be profoundly versatile, useful, inexpensive objects. Here are just a few of the legitimate uses of Q-tips (weighted toward uses popular with women):

• Use a Q-tip to apply just a touch of color to the roots of your hair between dye jobs.
• Outline your lips with translucent powder after applying lipstick to keep the color from running.
• Remove small stains in fabrics and upholstery by applying hydrogen peroxide and baking soda with a Q-tip.
• Clean the lint out your hair dryer vents.
• Fix a stuck zipper by applying a dab of shampoo with a Q-tip.
• Use two Q-tips to gently squeeze a whitehead or blackhead.
• Apply eyelash glue with the tip of a Q-tip.
• Coat the tips of Q-tips with your favorite eye shadow shades, and pack them in a plastic bag to save space in your suitcase.
• Give children Q-tips to use as paintbrushes if their fingers are too small to hold the real thing.
• Apply glue to arts and crafts with a Q-tip.
• When you don't have time to give your baby a bath, use a moistened Q-tip to remove grime and debris from folds of baby's skin.
• Use Q-tips to apply wood stain to conceal scratches on floors.
• Remove dust from scroll work and statues with Q-tips.

Those are just a few of the sanctioned uses of Q-tips. Most of us, however, use Q-tips for something else. We use them to clean our ears.

There's a Right Way and a Wrong Way to Use Q-Tips to Clean Your Ears

There actually is a way to use Q-tips to clean your ears that Q-tip makers and otolayrngologists (ear doctors) alike approve. The basic principle is very simple:

Use Q-tips to clean the outside of your ear, not your ear canal.

READ Home Remedies for Clogged Ears

It's OK to apply a Q-tip to the helix, scapha, and triangular fossa, the curved parts of the outside of your ear. Even when working on the outside of your ear, you need to be gentle, but there is very little danger of injuring yourself as long as you keep the Q-tip out of your ear canal. 

With a warning on the box and the 100 percent certainty of a stern lecture from the doctor if you run into problems after inserting a Q-tip into your ear canal, why do people ignore doctor's advice? The answer is simple. Sticking a Q-tip up your ear feels good. Tickling your inner ear induces intense pleasure.

Ten Things Everyone Needs To Understand About Q-Tip Addiction

The reason using a Q-tip feels so good is that the inside of the ear is densely lined with nerve endings. Activating the nerves inside your ear can send pleasure signals to other parts of your body. The more you dig into your ear with a Q-tip, however, the more your irritate the ear canal. The more you irritate your ear canal, the more it itches, and the more you "scratch" it with a Q-tip, which feels so good. Q-tips can become quite literally addicting, but before you put that Q-tip into your ear, here are 10 things you need to know.

1. Fifty percent of patients at otolaryngologist (ear doctor) offices come in after they have put Q-tips i their ears.
2. Because the Q-tip can be used to collect samples of ear wax for laboratory examination, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates it as a medical advice. Problems with Q-tips have to be reported to the FDA, but the FDA does not keep an easily accessible record of them.

1. Sticking a Q-tip too far into the ear canal can cause a perforated or ruptured eardrum. Perforating the ear drum may not  cause eardrum pain unless the eardrum becomes infected. Even without pain, however, a perforated ear drum can result in hearing loss that isn't brought to the attention of a doctor until it is too late.
2. We're told that ear wax is ugly and dirty, but our ears make it for a reason. Ear wax protects the lining of the ear from infection. Removing wax dries out the lining of the ear, causing tiny cracks that can let bacteria inside.
3. Q-tips don't really remove most wax from the ears. They push it farther inside. Impacted wax can interfere with hearing, and it may be necessary to go to a doctor to remove it. The otolaryngologist may have to use suction or irrigation to get the wax out.
4. If you really have a problem with ear wax, you probably need to use ear drops that break it up. There's very little difference in the effectiveness of the various brands of ear drops. Just be sure that anything you put inside your ear is sterile. Don't let the tip of the applicator touch your ear, and don't use an applicator that has touched someone else's ear, especially if they have had an ear infection.
5. Some kinds of facial surgery can leave nerves exposed. If you have had facial surgery, you need to be very careful to avoid using Q-tips to avoid nerve injury.
6. Olive oil can remove ear wax. Don't pour olive oil into the ear. A drop or two should be enough.
7. The cotton swab at the end of the wooden or plastic stick can come off inside your ear. If you do, despite advice, use a Q-tip inside your ear, take a quick look at it before you throw it away to make sure the tip of the Q-tip has not come off. Leaving cotton inside your ear can interfere with your hearing, and cause pain and infection. Only a doctor can remove it.

READ Tinnitus Cure Solutions: How to stop this ringing in the Ears?

1. Using a Q-tip to remove water after swimming can drive water further down the ear canal. If the swab or the stick perforates the ear drum, then any microorganisms in the water have an easy path into it to cause infection.

There's one other tip about Q-tips users need to know. There's a movement to ban them. The sooner you get used to other methods of keeping your ears clean, the less traumatic it will be when you can't find Q-tips in your local store.