• toynbee@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Oh, I don’t disagree regarding regular use being a pain. I used 3 q-tips after every shower (one per ear for the various crevasses, then the opposite ends of a shared one to - as you say - scoop from the main canal). For at least two reasons I wouldn’t want to use peroxide that way every day.

    However, twice in my life I’ve gotten my ears clogged to the point that q-tips just made it worse. In both of those cases, peroxide worked miracles.

    • BalooWasWahoo@links.hackliberty.org
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      1 month ago

      The peroxide didn’t work for me once the wax became impacted. Maybe if I had repeated it several times in the course of a day, but it was easier to just repeat the trip to the doctor to have them get it out. Losing your hearing absolutely sucks, and I didn’t want to delay getting it back.

      • toynbee@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        For me, the impaction was only mitigated after leaving the peroxide in for an extended period.

        I did have a pool-related impaction one other time before I started using q-tips regularly. I went to the doctor for that and they pushed it out using some kind of manual water pump. It worked and the obstruction came out of my ear, but until that happened it felt like earwax (and water) were going to come out of my nose. I don’t know if that’s normal, but it was unpleasant.

        One last mostly unrelated (and entirely unprompted) aside: my first encounter (that I remember, at least) with q-tips was right when I was a boy approaching puberty. My mother cleaned my ears with wet q-tips and I complained of the unpleasant feeling. She told me “if you don’t keep your ears clean, no girl will ever stick her tongue down your ear!” At the time it sounded nice just to have any contact with a girl, but now that I’m an adult I have to avoid wondering about that sentence that my mother said to me.

        • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          I had a girlfriend when I was 16 that started licking my ear then tongued my ear hole while I was on the phone with my mom lying about where I was.

          I’m 41 now and no one has ever done that again. It was unique.

          • TheOakTree@lemm.ee
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            1 month ago

            I have licked an ear in an intimate situation. It wasn’t too uncomfortable for me, and it was something they enjoyed the sensation of.

            Tongue-ing the ear hole though??? That’s fuckin evil.

          • toynbee@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            When I was in my early twenties, a girl I had a crush on but who was dating my friend came up behind me and scritched my head. I’m married to a different woman now and have a kid, but I still wonder about that interaction. I can relate.

              • toynbee@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                No other woman has ever done that to me unless I was already in a relationship with them. I don’t mind a casual hair ruffling, but if that’s what it was it’s still surprising to me.