How earwax is professionally extracted

• Earwax is a completely normal byproduct of the ear and is actually beneficial because it naturally cleans your ear.
• But sometimes the wax can build up, which can cause irritation, muffled hearing, or hearing loss. When that happens, it's time to see a doctor.
• Insider's Caroline Aghajanian, Joe Avella, and Mikala Jones-Fielder visited Dr. Geoffrey Trenkle, an otolaryngologist at the Los Angeles Center for Ear, Nose, Throat and Allergy, to learn more about earwax and to have their ears professionally checked.
• Dr. Trenkle can safely remove earwax by using either a curette or a vacuum device. He suggests to never try over-the-counter options to remove earwax and to stop using Q-tips because they may cause a perforated eardrum, which can lead to a risky surgery.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Mikala Jones-Fielder: Oh, my God! [gasps] Oh!

Joe Avella: Yeah, that feels really weird. And that...ooh! Aah. Caroline Aghajanian: I am on my way to get my ears professionally cleaned for the first time. I didn't want to be alone in this experience, so I'm bringing my two friends Joe and Mikala with me. It's gonna be kind of like a little battle to see who has the most earwax, and whoever does is getting it extracted. So, we're gonna learn a little bit more about earwax and how you can care for it at home and why some people produce it more than others, and, yeah, we're gonna have our ears checked out. Let's go take a look inside our ears.

How do you guys feel?

Mikala: I'm excited!

---

Joe: I'm very excited.

Caroline: Who do you think's gonna have the most earwax? Joe: Me, are you kidding me? I'm gonna dominate this thing. I can't wait!

Mikala: Mm, we'll see.

Geoffrey Trenkle: I'm Dr. Trenkle. I am a otolaryngologist, or an ENT surgeon, here at Los Angeles Center for Ear, Nose, and Throat and Allergy. So, earwax is a naturally produced byproduct of the ear. It's natural, it's supposed to be there. It actually is very healthy to have. It does a couple of things. No. 1, it traps debris. So if things are floating into the ear, mostly microscopic particles, it's gonna trap them, and then it's gonna be shed out. Also, it moistens the ear. So, you don't want the ear to be too dry. Just like your skin, if you get too dry, it cracks, it hurts, it's painful. Wax can produce almost, like, a lubricating effect. So, you want it to be there. Otherwise, if it's not, then your ear dries out. And we get a lot of patients that come in with just ear pain, a lot of times from using things like Q-tips, etc. They're kind of destroying the natural product of the ear canal and creating more dryness.

Caroline: We're starting up the ear cam. And then we're going in the ear.

Joe: How wild would it be if there was, like, a nest of spiders in Caroline's ear or something like that?

Caroline: Joe, don't, don't say that. That's disgusting. Ew, that can happen.

Trenkle: We get cockroaches at least once a month.

Mikala: No, you don't! Joe: In peoples' ears?

Trenkle: Oh, yeah. It's very common.

Caroline: Ew, that's gonna be me, I'm gonna be that statistic, I'm gonna have the roach in my ear.

Trenkle: All right, you ready to go?

Caroline: Yes.

Trenkle: OK. That's actually her tympanic membrane, which is basically the end of the ear canal. So, what you're looking down is the actual canal, and there's no wax, not a single drop. Joe: Whoa!

Caroline: What?

Trenkle: There's no wax in there.

Caroline: None at all?

Trenkle: Just one small roach, but we'll leave it in there.

Caroline: Oh, my God, let's leave the roach in there. We're family now. I'm sorry to be a disappointment! But, like, also happy, too.

Trenkle: You actually want your wax right here. Right where those hair cells are, right there. If the wax is out here in this area, it can be pushed out. Some people don't produce as much earwax as others; some people produce harder earwax; some people produce softer earwax, like more mucusy-type earwax. There's all different types of earwax that you can produce. Caroline: Well, I'm good. Who's next? Here I come.

Joe: I just feel like it's built up, you know? I'm older than I look, and I don't get my ears checked out that often, and I do wear the ear pods a lot. I hope my hearing isn't going. So I'm praying that it's the wax and not my hearing. OK. Oh, I think I see some junk.

Trenkle: We got some wax.

Joe: Yes!

Trenkle: This right here is a pretty healthy amount of wax. So, he has kind of a medium-consistency wax, so it's not, like, incredibly hardened. If this builds up a lot, it doesn't come out as one big chunk, but it also doesn't suction out very smoothly. We'll use what's called a curette to kind of gently kind of scrape that out. I'm looking around. I can't see past it. It doesn't look like it's crazy impacted behind it, but there's definitely a wall of wax. Joe: Yo, wall of wax. Oh, man, this is great.

Caroline: All right. So, Joe, you might be it, but let's check Mikala.

Joe: All right, all right, all right.

Mikala: So, as a kid, I actually had an issue with producing too much wax, so I had to get, like, some stuff that they put in my ear. It was, like, traumatic for me as a kid. I remember my dad, like, sitting me on the floor and putting something in my ear and it coming out. Anyway, so I've always had, like, a buildup of wax, so we'll see if that's decreased as I've gotten older. I don't know.

Trenkle: Yeah, a history of wax in the past, I don't know. I think you were holding out on him.

Joe: Yeah, I think she was too.
[evil laugh]

Trenkle: Can you see that?

Mikala: Oh, that's from using Q-tips, isn't it? Trenkle: Yes, it is, 'cause you can see how it's flattened out. So it's kind of a darker wax that's flattened out. So that's the skin down there, and see that right there? So it's going all the way to the tympanic membrane. Now, it's still not a huge amount. Imagine that filling up the whole ear canal. It's getting past the hair cells, so it's gonna be hard for your body to clean that wax out. So if you left this for a while or if you were more apt to producing a lot of wax, then that would start to cause a problem.

Mikala: Ooh, wow. Well, I'm glad I'm here.
Cleaner!

Trenkle: Wait for it. Oh, you've got another piece, just right there. Pretty much the same thing as the other side but a little bit higher up on the ear canal.

Mikala: Yeah, like, on the side. So, who would you say is the winner, doctor?

Trenkle: I think, to be honest with you, it's gonna come down to when we clean it out. Mikala: Oh, OK.

Trenkle: Because if he has a lot more wax behind that one flake, then I think it's still a competition.

Mikala: The plot has thickened, OK.

Trenkle: What we do here, as a otolaryngologist, is we remove the wax with a couple of different methods. One method, which we do when there's not an incredible amount of impaction, is we use what's called a curette. A curette is kind of a metal loop that we use to kind of scrape out the earwax. That will just help us kind of gently remove all the earwax without damaging the skin, etc. The other option that we have for removing earwax is a vacuum, or a suction. And we go in with this suction, as you can see, and we just vacuum it out little by little.

Joe: Bro. [grunting] Oh, God, I do feel that, actually. Dude, that's so satisfying. Wow, look at that. Yeah, it feels like you're really close to the canal there, dude. Or really close to the eardrum. Are you?

Trenkle: Very far away.

Joe: OK. Actually, yeah, that feels really weird. And that...ooh! Aah.

Mikala: Ew, this one is so gooey.

Joe: Oh, that's so gross. Caroline: They were your little friends, and now they're gone.

Trenkle: At least it's not a cockroach.

Joe: Yeah, no kidding. All right, no roaches in my ears, that's a relief. All right, Mikala.

Mikala: Oh, yeah, I feel that lifting. Lift, lift. Ooh.

Joe: Isn't that a weird feeling? Mikala: Ooh, yeah. Oh, my God. [gasps] Oh!

Trenkle: It was bigger than it looked.

Mikala: I win. Oh, I don't know how I feel about that, ew. There's more? Oh, my God! The wax in my right ear, ew! OK, I really gotta stop using Q-tips. This is, like, an intervention. I get it, all right? I'll stop.

Trenkle: So, there's a number of different over-the-counter options for removing earwax at home. For the most part, we advise not to do any of them. People use Q-tips. Q-tips are fine if you're trying to just clean the outside of the ear. The second you get that Q-tip into the ear canal, now you're potentially causing a problem. Perforated eardrum, or a hole in the eardrum, that can be caused by self-cleaning, can sometimes be hard to fix, and even when it is fixable, it's a pretty big surgery, it becomes a fair amount of risks and complications to it as well.

Joe: I think Mikala won. But I think it's a little unfair because hers was a lot darker than mine. I think her ears smoke or something.

Mikala: I think someone's a sore loser.

Joe: Well, mine was so gooey, so he had to wipe it down a bunch. Mine wasn't as concentrated, so. Can we weigh it? Don't you think it's weird that she didn't have anything?

Caroline: You guys, I did not plan that!

Mikala: That was suspicious. Joe: Yo, what is your ear regimen?

Caroline: All right, ending the video! Ending the video, you guys won! Yay! Bye!

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published in December 2019.