Using Q-tips to clean the inside of your ear canal can lead to wax impaction, irritation, and even damage to the eardrum.

Q: I understand that poking cotton swabs into the ear is dangerous. But how is one supposed to clean the ears otherwise? I don’t want to see goopy yellow wax in anyone’s ear canal, especially my own.

Most of us have done it. After a shower, you grab a cotton swab, tilt your head, and twist it gently inside your ear. It feels satisfying, almost like a ritual. The cotton comes out with a hint of ...

Feel the need to clean your child’s ears? Step away from that cotton swab. Despite years of warnings to avoid putting the product into the ear canal, more than 263,000 children in the U.S. had to be ...

When Vidya Raman’s son complained of water in his ear after a shower, she did something many mothers do. She grabbed a cotton swab. But her pre-teen son jerked when she inserted the swab. Her son ...

You’ve been told for years that you’re not supposed to clean your ear canal with a cotton swab. It’s dangerous and not very effective…. but it feels so good! So you do it anyway, day after day. The ...

Your donation today will help MinnPost continue to report on the news you need. Doctors have warned us that using cotton swabs to clean our ears is not a good idea. In fact, the swabs can do a lot of ...

The most common injury among young children was a tearing, or rupturing, of the tissue that separates the ear canal from the middle ear. Injuries caused by cotton swabs send dozens of children to ...

A man who apparently lived with a cotton bud stuck in his ear for years before it led to a dangerous infection is highlighting the risk of cleaning ears with swabs. Doctors recently described his ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CBS) – There's a new study out showing just how many children are visiting hospital emergency rooms because of cotton swabs causing ear injuries. Researchers with Nationwide Children's ...