What is earwax?

Glands make earwax (also called cerumen) in outer part of ear canal. Earwax is made by your body to help your ear stay healthy. The purpose of this sticky substance is to act as a shield to prevent dust, dirt and other materials from entering your ear canal. Earwax also helps to maintain ear canal's balance of acid and protects ears from various infections.

A popular myth about cerumen is that it is a sign of poor hygiene. This couldn’t be farther from truth! It is not only normal to have earwax inside ear canal, it is essential for proper ear health. Your ears constantly clean themselves by slowly moving earwax and debris out of ear canal opening. Most of time, you will be unaware of this cleaning process.

Can earwax become a problem?

Fresh earwax is soft and yellow. Older earwax is brown or black and may even look like blood. The wax may also be dry, white, and flaky. If you have darker kind, or it looks like blood, you may want to see a specialist to make sure it isn't a more complicated problem.

Too much earwax in ear can cause an uncomfortable sensation. If excess earwax gathers in ear canal, it can act like an earplug; blocking sound vibrations entering ear and causing a slight hearing loss.

What causes excess earwax buildup?

No one knows for sure why some people have problems with earwax and others don't. Older adults tend to have more problems than younger adults. People with coarse wiry hairs in ears seem to have greater difficulty. This occurs more often in older men.

Some people may have problem in only one ear, others with both or neither ear. If you use a hearing aid, you should pay special attention to excess buildup of earwax. The ear mold of a hearing aid can act like a dam, preventing wax from moving freely out of your ear canal.

There are 3 main reasons that you need to take quality nutritional supplements each & every day. In this article, I want to go over these 3 reasons we need to supplement our diets.

Reason #1: Food Production Methods In between harsh farming methods, toxic chemical sprays, harvesting foods prematurely, & storing foods for long periods of time, much of nutrients that should be in our food just aren't there. Recent scientific studies show that a mere fraction of nutrients that should be in foods are still there.

Especially nutrients such as enzymes & phytonutrients, which are very fragile, are destroyed long before food reaches your table, if nutrients were even there to start with.