Ear Wax!

I had a blocked ear because of too much accumulated wax in the ear(self diagnosis) and I could hardly hear anything!I did my bit of self medication and put soliwax but my ear seemed to keep getting worse. The drops were clogging my ear even more. Now along with the feeling of a blocked ear, I could also feel the liquid ear drops making bubbles in the ear canal.

I was uncomfortable and put almost everything I could in my ear….finger…ear buds (was looking for a hair pin but luckily did not find it!). It did not get any better. The only thing I succeeded was in pushing the wax further into the ear canal.I finally got a torch and showed the in house baby doctor(my brother who is a medical student) and he said….ah I can see some wax... but I have never seen a normal ear canal so I don’t know if it is too much!

Then armed with the torch we both went looking inside the ear canals of everyone else in the house. Luckily since it was on rakhee day, we had a lot of ear canals to look into and finally we reached a conclusion that the wax in my ear was too much!

And then the baby doctor opened his ENT book which was as good as new and was tucked away at the bottom of the study table away and looked in the appendix for ear block and found the appropriate page. I was suffering from a classical case of excessive ear wax!!

Did you know ear wax among other things is made of sebum, dirt and dead hair! The hair part was news to me!

I continued with Soliwax multiple times a day with the mindset of the more I put the faster it would get cured. But it just kept getting worse. Now it was the combination of ear wax and ear drops blocking my ear!

I could not hear what people were saying I would laugh at jokes people cracked at work cause everyone was laughing. I don’t know how many inappropriate answers were given by me in the last one week.

And the interesting part was almost everyone had a blocked ear story to share!

Some told me about the time their ear was blocked and a big black stone like mass came out and was hard enough to break the glass, others shared their experiences with the ENT with a fancy head gear and torch, still others gave me advice on how putting oil is better than the ear drops!

Half the advice and stories went un heard or partially heard at the best case…


I finally had enough of it and I should show my ear to the office doctor and get some real advice!

But like my in house baby doctor he could not see any wax in the ear but he could not confess to a patient that he had not seen normal ear canals to make out the difference. I had half of mind of suggesting that I understand his plight and the best way to learn would be to come check out the ear canals of people in office!
Thank god...only half my mind sugested that option

After few more days of Soliwax with no relief I finally decided to go to an ENT!

He pulled my ear and with one look and he said….Oh My God!…so much wax….no wonder you dont listen to you mom! (That was his attempt to humor!)

He picked up a hooked instrument …, put it in my ear….and pulled out a blob of wax…..It felt like someone was pulling out a blob of mud from the muck….paaaaaachaaak….was the loud sound I could hear in my ear….it was ekky….it was creepy…it was scary…but I had to sit still…..and in about 5 seconds it was over out! And I could hear again!!!!

And then it was lecture time….I got a dose on how I should not have used ear buds and how using ear buds and pushed the wax deep inside the ear…and how I could have injured my ear drum in the process…etc etc

And then it came to payment time….900 bucks is what I had to pay for a 5 second procedure and a end to end discussion of 15 minutes!!

It is so ironical, that if I had gone out shopping or gone for dinner and spent the same amount of money…I would not have felt the pinch….but I resent paying a doctor who has given me relief…I realize it is wrong to resent it…. Cause after all he is a professional and this is his way to make a living..

The good thing that came out of this entire episode…is that I learnt to put in my HIS claims!

Current Staus: I have another date with the doctor next week….cause all the blobs of wax in my ear are not out yet….and I am back to putting Soliwax!!