To tell you all that I just unblocked my own ear and it feels AMAZING?

[Fossiliferous]

It's been blocked on and off since I had covid in 2021 😬

It gets worse every time I get a cold or my hayfever is bad, so I assumed it was a middle ear thing. Had a phone appointment with my GP about it when it first started and was advised to do steam inhalation and use otrivine nasal spray, so that's what I've been doing when it blocks and eventually it clears. My ears never seemed very waxy and due to it being linked to congestion I never thought it might be wax.

But about 3 weeks ago it blocked and just wouldn't unblock. I've been almost completely unable to hear from that ear since and it's been misery, so disorientating.

Anyway I thought in desperation last week to try wax removal just in case and got some bicarbonate of soda spray, when I tried it my ear literally fizzed and popped and seemed slightly clearer so I've been doing that twice daily for 5 days. This morning I thought I'd give it a rinse with a bulb thingy and some very slightly salty water and OMG the gak that came out 🤢 I thought it would never end, and then one really big stringy bit (like a ribbon of dead skin) came out and all of a sudden I could hear again and my head stopped feeling faintly swimmy. It took 3 x 500ml jugs of warm water (teaspoon of salt added to each) though, I was rinsing it for about 15 minutes til the water came out clear.

Everything is so loud! Its obviously been far worse than I realised for ages

Once I get used to everything being so loud again I'm going to do the other ear, which I thought was unaffected but now this ear is properly clear I can tell that the other one is a bit blocked too.

I don't want to spoil anyone's fun but please be careful. On holiday in Malta in the 1970's and with some sea water in my ears after swimming, my DA said she would fix it for me. She poured bicarb into my ear and then warm (almost hot) water. Got the fizzing and she made me sit with my head on one side for a while, then I moved and the water ran out. Then the other side, each night for about five nights. I've had bad tinnitus ever since which I'm sure was because of this. So don't use hot water, and don't apply much pressure or you can perforate your eardrum.

Very good advice. People shouldn’t experiment too much. Tinnitus is awful.

Would this help with itchy ears? Sometimes I want to a Brillo bad in there.

Only half the house? amateur.

I hope you managed to find all the babies and then what happened to them? Were they all okay and did you rehome some or keep them all (separately)?

In other hamster related news, I once found one running down the road in the gutter (I know, its a gift). She must have been out on her own for a while because her teeth were overgrown and pushing into her little nose. I had to take her to the vets every 2-3 weeks to have them cut, her jaw had got too deformed for them to wear down naturally.

When I found her I was in a dilemma as I had a hamster in one hand and a car to drive which traditionally takes 2. I went into the hospital over the road and asked for a box, I was told they only had the one but it had envelopes in it. I said you can just put them on your desk, they won't go anywhere because they are stationary which I thought was a funny play on words but was lost on them.

Anyway we had her for quite a long time, for a hamster, and she wasn't young when we got her. My dad would sit on the floor with her and she would run up his trouser leg and peep out, then climb onto his shoulder and go to sleep. She started out in a cat basket with a shoe box for a bed. We bought her an expensive 3 tier cage with all the accoutrements which she wouldn't go in to, so we had to return the cage and revert to plan A, the cat basket

If it wasn't for all the animals we had I don't know what we would have done with all the time and money spent on them. Expensive holidays chilling on the beach, bored rigid or a beautiful house with exquisite furnishings and none of it "customised" by cats and rabbits. What a waste of a life that would have been.

If I win the lottery I will buy a big place with land and do it all over again, although I would have staff to do the mucking out - I'm not an idiot.

I love watching earwax removal videos on YouTube, I bet you can hear colours now.

you can just put them on your desk, they won't go anywhere because they are stationary

Ha! 😂

No not all the hamsters were found, but as it was early summer they survived quite well. We found about half of them over a month or so, a couple of neighbours found them in their gutter and in their gardens and brought them
back. One ate from the sofa and I think lived in it. One ate some cables. Found some in the wardrobe after a few weeks, they had made an impressive nest. My mum returned them to where we got the first one (which they said was a male). Quite a few were outdoors. It was the summer I spent looking for my hamsters.

So sorry for derailing this thread. Honestly. 😩😂😳

Do you take antihistamines at all? My ears get itchy with hayfever, and antihistamines work better than a length of barbed wire run between my ears from the inside.

Try the bicarbonate of soda spray, honestly.

Yeah I wouldn't put neat bicarb in my ear 🤯 This stuff was a properly made spray to the right strength!

Can you do mine?

Thanks for that. My ears have been popping on and off since I had my daughter. It goes with a clicking sound, and it's never quite aligned. It's frustrating, because it goes with a sense of satisfaction, that's when it clicks, but it's not a properly aligned click so it remains near my ear clicking every now and then as if it knows my inner world enough to know when my ear is going to need to click. Jesus. Thankyou.

One of my weirder menopausal symptoms is that my ears - especially my left ear - fills rapidly with wax.
I have them professionally microsuctioned every 3 months and it is satisfying.
Not as satisfying as your experience though - that sounds awesome!

As I was reading this thread with interest, a tiny lump of earwax just randomly fell out of my ear, perhaps in awe of some of these stories 😂

As a practice nurse this is music to my ‘ears’ 😂😂. So many people still want ears irrigated which can come with risks but if you use the ear drops and persevere with the ear bulb it really works. Enjoy the loud 😁

I did this with the Amazon syringe thingy, it was a fair few years ago and it still lives in my memory as a wonderful day! All the crap that came out of my ear followed by crystal clear hearing and no longer feeling off kilter and hearing everything slightly muffled. It was so good that sometimes I almost wish my ear would get blocked again so I could relive the glory!

That sounds blissful!

Well done @Fossiliferous! Although I’m genuinely gutted there are no photos of exactly what was extracted.

How satisfying!

Mine were blocked from the inside, ETD, but I discovered Otovent and using that twice daily recovered my hearing to long forgotten levels.

What was it from amazon?

I got the Lugguards quad tip syringe. It was brilliant and was such a relief to have unblocked my ears. I made sure I had used warmed olive oil and bicarb drops for days beforehand so it softened the wax and it made it easier to wash out the gunge.

You inspired me OP, my spay and bulb arrived today so first spay has been done!

Started reading this thread last night and I am now laid here with the sodium bicarbonate spray bubbling away in my ear 😆
Thank you Op ( and Amazon Prime!)

Anyone with links..? 😅

Oh how I wish there was something similar for permanently blocked sinuses!!