Ringing Right Ear for 7 Days After Using Q-Tips to Clear Earwax — Advice Wanted, Thank You

Hello everyone, I come here looking for knowledge and advice. I have never had ringing in my ears until 7 days ago when I was stupid and ignorant enough to be using q-tips in the morning to clean earwax from my right ear. Ringing in the right ear, and not my left ear, began noticeably later that day and has persisted for the last 7 days and gradually increased in volume over that time. The day after it started, I noticed a lot of fluid in my ear when I woke up in the morning.

Certain factors lead me to believe this is earwax related and I hopefully did not damage my inner ear, but of course that is why I am here, to seek knowledge from everyone here so please educate me if I get something incorrect. First I have always had excessive earwax and sinus activity for the last 15+ years, second I had numerous ear infections from swimming as a kid, third I have been showering less frequently recently, and fourth over the last 7 days I have up until now, ignorantly been sleeping mostly with my head right ear facing up so that fluids would not drain at night. I have begun to shower multiple times per day over the last 48 hours and lay on the right ear down side after showering and at night as well.

My question is what are my options for treatment? I do not want to rush any quick earwax removal as to avoid further damage, instead I would like to continue showering daily. Before this all started, I was showering very infrequently over the period of about 1-2 weeks for various legitimate reasons and this infrequent showering continued into day 5 of the ringing. When I recently started taking multiple showers a day, I could start to physically feel what to me feels like earwax whereas I could not feel this sensation before day 5. This sensation of a large earwax blockage has increased noticeably every 12 hours. On day 1-5 there was no feeling of blockage at all, and to me it feels like the wax is getting closer to outside of the ear. However my ringing has increased atleast 20% from day 1 to now and the majority of that increase has been in the last 2 days.

In the first 1-5 days I could sometimes sit still and turn off all noise and listen for the ringing and hear nothing, but almost always when I would walk around/turn on the fan/consciously focus on the ringing, it would become unavoidably obvious and annoying. When I turn on a medium volume fan in my room, the ringing becomes very loud comparatively to it being totally quiet in the room. Which leads me to wonder whether I have hearing loss leading to sensitivity to certain high pitch noises made by the fan. The ringing itself is very high pitch like a dog whistle, I can not hear it over music and actually most of the time after listening to music, I stop the music and the ringing is perceived as much lower intensity.

My questions are to everyone interested in offering their advice which is very much appreciated: What treatment plan should I take, is showering often as I described above a good and sufficient plan? Is this most likely earwax blockage, and how long can the physical blockage last? What are the chances I damage my inner ear and have tinnitus outlasting the earwax? I have a friend who took certain pharma which gave him lasting tinnitus, so I have a ton of sympathy already for this community. I am just hopeful that I did not damage my right ear or anything like that would give me long lasting ringing and may be one of the lucky ones that will have this clear up along with the earwax. Thanks to everyone in advance.

Additionally 2 more pieces of information: I had a very high fatty diet when this ringing/hissing started and it is also a very dry climate. Thanks again everyone, all opinions and advice is welcome. It physically feels like I have small sized earplugs in both ears, more so in the right ear. As of today I noticed that if I gently push on the base of the ear or gently tug on the bottom lobe of the ear even for 5 seconds, then the hissing/ringing noise quiets down for about 10 seconds maximum until I can unavoidably hear the sound again. However I will not do these "exercises" often because less physical pressure applied is probably best right now. It is a very faint hiss with a dog whistle high pitch ring, definitely mild case for now. My main goal is to avoid further damage and clear up what feels like earplugs. I don't want to be putting olive oil or hydrogren peroxide (again) in my ears if hot shower mist is a safer alternative. Last night I put a few drops hydrogren peroxide in the right ear with the effect of intense fizzing for a good while. Dont want to try it again because if steam works, then that is better for harm reduction I think.

 

Are you sure that you haven't damaged your eardrum? When people's eardrum bursts (e.g., as a result of a terrorist bomb), they often get tinnitus. It goes away months after their eardrum heals.

You can also search this forum using the word Q-tip or related keywords, to see what usually happens in those cases.

If your eardrum hasn't been damaged, there is not much you can do to promote healing besides wait. You Can do things to avoid tinnitus getting worse/louder.
You will want to avoid taking ototoxic drugs, avoid microsuction or syringing (performed when you need to clean wax out of your ears; a manual tool should be used), and not let your dental hygienist use an ultrasonic scaling tool on you (a manual tool should be used). For more details, see

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...eone-else-who-has-tinnitus.26850/#post-307822

 

If it is changing from a ringing to a hiss, it is a wonderful sign indicating that it is fading.

Some people (including me) have noticed that we get tinnitus spikes after eating dairy products.

 

I would honestly go to a doctor and have them look in your ear to make sure you don’t have impaction of wax/hurt your ear drum. Do not use any kind of OTC medications in your ear right now and that includes hydrogen peroxide, they’re ototoxic which can create all sorts of issues. I say that because I’m not a med professional and don’t know if you possibly hurt your ear drum. I’d say go to urgent care and see what they say. I’m sorry you’re experiencing this. Also do not let the any doctors micro suction any wax etc as some people have gotten tinnitus from that. Maybe they can prescribe you something to get rid of the wax (that’s if your ear drum isn’t injured).

 

I am actually strongly beginning to think that I might have damaged my eardrum somehow since the qtips I used did not have much fluff on the ends of them. I also learned since my last posting that the ear drum is not as deep in the ear as I always thought it was. The earwax scenario generally doesn't convince me anymore after not having much of any earwax come from my ears over the last 2-3 days of frequent showering. I know/hope I didn't seriously damage my eardrum because there is no sharp pains or intense symptoms that I would have. However, after showering there is some physical irritation that subsides after 10 minutes of being out. From now on I am going to treat this as a damaged eardrum because that is most likely whats going on in my opinion. I woke up this morning and the noise was much quieter but then after being up for several hours, it has increased again. I notice a sensitivity to loud high pitch noises like water running, or dishes being hit together, or some aspects of my favorite songs being more high pitch and annoyingly so than I remember. When I get out of the shower, the volume of the ringing goes to maximum, and my ears physically feel most uncomfortable at least until it seems they have time to dry out, or this may be the effect of the loud shower. When I got up this morning, it was very quiet and I could barely hear any ringing, and if anything it was more of a hissing/static noise. But as a few hours go by and I was exposed to loud noises more and more randomly like dishes or shower etc, then the noise transforms into much louder ringing. If I induced a scratch or some kind of damage to my eardrum, then should I expect several months recovery time for the physical damage itself? Can I hope for the ringing to stop once my eardrum heals? Can I listen to music or should I have no noise on at all? What safety precautions would you take action on in my situation?

 

That's a good sign indicating that it Can be quiet. When tinnitus is relentlessly at the same level, that's when one has a reason to worry...

Give it time and it ought to get better.

Regarding people getting better after their eardrum heals, check out the first post on
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/spontaneous-recovery-stats-many-recover-3-studies.21441/

 

I am almost certain my problem is not earwax related at all but is instead physical damage to the eardrum from a thinly fluffed qtip. When I have no noise on in my room, the ringing is at a minimum.... but still significant. But when I hear literally anything, even this keyboard typing right now or my own voice when speaking, then the ringing becomes loud.... until I am able to be in quietness for a few minutes and it will decrease quickly. I am very sensitive to all forms of sound and when the sound is loud enough there is some pain that subsides after a few minutes in a quiet place. I was being optimistic thinking its just earwax but now realize I most likely scratched my eardrum with a qtip. What should I do besides eliminating as much noise as possible and staying in a quiet place? Anything else specifically I can do like magnesium etc? Are my symptoms similar to your guy's experiences of damaged eardrum? It worries me that I am having pain associated with loud noises but I am guessing thats to be expected after damaging your ear drum, however I don't know why I did not feel this for the first 5 days, and it was only in the last 4 days. This may be because for the first few days I thought I was imagining it, because it was very quiet then, but I listened to music and etc maybe unkowingly made it worse and now thats why my symptoms are worse. If I'm wrong about something let me know. I hope I can heal my ears without lasting damage from this mistake I made, so all feedback is welcome. I am trying to stay optimistic. Thanks...

 

Hey, sorry to hear about your issue. It sounds very similar to what I've had/have. I stupidly used q-tips for a blocked ear and they went to GP for miscrosuction - wish I had come on here first! Naively thought the Tinnitus would go away after seeing the nurse early March but unfortunaely it's still here. Good days and bad, tends to be worse when I've had less sleep/more stress. My actaul hearing is fine and the GP said he could see no damage.

Trying to stay positve and hoping it will fade away over time - I'd be interested to what people answer to your question about music as I'm still listening at moderate volumes (no headphones)