Sticky Paste Wax That Won't Let Go — Plus a Deep Skin Plug Removal – EP1284

[00:00:00]Coming up in today's video for you guys, we have very sticky wax plugs and we've also got a very deep wax removal from Taylor Greene.

[00:00:07]This is actually my patient, my name is Rhys Barber, I'm one of the audiologists here at Audiology Associates. Now at first glance this looks like a very dry, almost like plate of wax, but it's not quite that consistency. Now the first part, this entrance here, you can see we just sucked a piece up into the suction tube.

[00:00:22]I'm holding it there because it looks like it's going to disappear up and I can go and get the next bit, but it takes an age for this to disappear up the tube.

[00:00:30]So what we've got going on behind this is a very sticky type of wax.

[00:00:34]Now I've seen in the comments, lots of people are saying, how would you describe the consistency or what's a good analogy for consistency?

[00:00:42]Now what I want you to imagine, this type of wax is almost like a very thick paste that's smeared over the canal walls and this is a little bit more difficult to remove, this particular type of wax, because with bigger, harder pieces you can get a really good grip and you can kind of move it around and detach it off the canal wall.

[00:01:01]With this paste type wax, what happens is it just really firmly attaches to the canal wall and just doesn't want to let go.

[00:01:09]And when you try and peel it, what you get is it doesn't really peel particularly well.

[00:01:13]You're almost taking sort of chunks off that canal wall all the way down.

[00:01:18]Now you can see here, this is just a little bit more of an awkward consistency to remove, just that back section. They're just trying to, shift everything along.

[00:01:29]And just peeling this front section, you can see that little bit of dry skin and that's also a common factor in this more paste type wax, is you end up with a very dry surface layer of skin that sort of doesn't really want to come away particularly well.

[00:01:44]And that's what's caused this to kind of go this very pasty consistency.

[00:01:48]And just peeling down the canal, trying to expose those fresher canal wall skin.

[00:01:54]There you are, look at that coming away. As you can see, I'm on my own today, guys.

[00:01:57]I don't know why I just sort of sit off to this.

[00:02:00]That's better.

[00:02:02]So you can see I'm on my own today, guys.

[00:02:04]The lovely Mr. Taylor Greene's actually doing some wedding planning at home. So he's off today. So just me in front of the camera for this week's videos, which is really fair, really, because he did all last week. So we'll take it from there.

[00:02:16]So you're really kind of trying to get these last couple of pieces lifted from that canal wall.

[00:02:22]You can see this is just a painstaking process. It's slow and methodical. You need to be with this type of wax.

[00:02:32]I'm really hoping that this kind of sticky wax doesn't go over the eardrum here, because that would be really, really tough to remove.

[00:02:42]Yeah, a little flinch from the patient there. That's the other thing. You're working very, very close to the canal wall here.

[00:02:50]And you've got to work that close, because it's a very, very thin layer.

[00:02:54]Now, the patient could help out a little bit, here. They could probably use a little bit of olive oil. That's going to help twofold. It's going to help to absorb into the skin, which is going to stop it from drying out quite so much.

[00:03:05]You won't get that tougher surface layer. But it would also help to soften that wax a little bit. So it's more likely to migrate, because remember, when wax comes out of the canal, it's always trying to get out. It doesn't particularly want to stay in there. Its job is to pick up the dirt and debris and carry that out of the canal. Now, it's trying to do that all the time.

[00:03:23]But if you've been migrating down the canal, what's going to happen is that very dry skin is going to pull any oil, any kind of moisture out of this wax, causing this to be really, really thick and sticky.

[00:03:36]And then that's what causes it to sort of dry. And then when it adheres to the canal wall, wax naturally wants to adhere to that as well. So it's going to get this kind of snowball effect then with this kind of issue.

[00:03:46]So by using the oil, it's going to help to soften the wax, kind of almost like rehydrate it, for want of a better word, because you're using oil rather than water. But it just becomes less sticky, basically.

[00:03:58]And you can see how sticky this is. I've got the plug detached. Luckily, it wasn't stuck to the eardrum. And as I'm pulling this down, that wax is just clinging to the canal wall all the way down. It just doesn't want to come away really easily.

[00:04:12]There we go.

[00:04:13]And eardrum looking lovely and healthy there.

[00:04:18]Let's see. I'm just going to see if I can lift this last little bit.

[00:04:22]And there we go. Lovely. So I'm really happy with that. But you little flakes all the way around the canal wall there.

[00:04:30]Very similar on this side. Now, at first glance, see that matte appearance you get to that wax? Now, that matte appearance, that's that sort of either going to be really super, super tough, or it's going to be a little bit more sticky and soft, which is what this one is here as well. So usually, I would say nine times out of 10, the consistency of the first ear canal is going to be almost identical to the consistency on the other side but you can't always say that you do sometimes get differences between ear canals not too often though but you do sometimes see it.

[00:05:01]Thank you to everyone as well who's putting comments ready in the bottom there for comments corner we've got two comments or two questions coming up for every single subscriber video coming up this week so you will see those coming up and we will answer as many as we possibly can.

[00:05:16]I'm trying to pick questions that kind of relate to what you're watching so I think it kind of makes it a bit easier unless there's a question that gets you know asked a lot and we'll pop those in as well.

[00:05:26]We have had some suggestions for that for other rather than comments corner ask the audiologist I thought that was a good one I can't remember who said that now but somebody came up with ask the audiologist so I think that's a really really good I think I prefer that actually to comment corner so maybe we'll call that ask the audiologist instead yeah let's run with that so we've got those two coming up at the end of this as well and don't forget guys if you are enjoying the video you can always like heart share follow subscribe for me that would be absolutely fantastic once even more videos become a member of the channel you'll get two extra days worth of videos every single week as well so we're just going to lift this last little bit up I'm really hoping as with the other side this isn't attached to the eardrum at all but let's see what we've got oh it's it's really crumbly now see how the consistency's kind of changed a little bit from that sticky paste to this more sort of crumbly dry yeah type of wax here uh same thing just holding that little bit of wax in the end of the suction tube they're hoping it's going to kind of suck up the tube sometimes they don't always do it sometimes they get kind of held in there and you've got we've got a special little uh sometimes it's plastic adapter sometimes it's like a metal one but and you push that through just to knock any bits out so they're clear that the the pathway through um I know I think it's Neil uses a bit of oil in there to see if that helps I I don't really find that particularly helpful for some of these consistencies but you know it's it's you know knowing he was good as pushing a physical thing through the block to clear the blockage so some oil going in for the last bit here it just needs to work under this last little piece oh my goodness this is holding on so tightly let's start you can see that starting to detach on the right hand side now hopefully that was the main kind of anchor for this piece of wax and let's see what's going to come out what's almost there.

[00:07:35]And is it gonna get stuck?

[00:07:37]Nope, out that comes. Ooh, look at that with a long kind of hairy second.

[00:07:43]Whoa, I didn't expect to see that there then. That was kind of right through the face he went through.

[00:07:47]But looking really healthy, and the eardrum looking really good considering that kind of how dry that canal was. Oh, this is actually Katie's patient I can tell because of the ruler shot at the end.

[00:07:55]My goodness, that was so quick.

[00:07:57]I can't even remember what that was. It was about two and a half, three centimeters.

[00:08:00]So this is Taylor's removal. This is a deep piece of skin.

[00:08:05]You can see it's skin because of that kind of very white underside to it. And you've got this really sticky side pieces here.

[00:08:16]Well that's coming away a lot better than I thought it was.

[00:08:18]Blocked the suction tube there by the looks of it though.

[00:08:22]Yeah I can see he's kind of holding on but because it's almost, oh that's a that's a tiny ear canal as well. That is so so small.

[00:08:31]What's he going to get up to?

[00:08:32]Let's see if we can pull this section off the right-hand side.

[00:08:37]Let's have a little look.

[00:08:38]There it is.

[00:08:42]Well that came away a lot better than I thought it was.

[00:08:44]You can never quite tell with those skin plugs. Sometimes it'll be jutting off the one side and it can cause a few issues and doesn't really want to come away cleanly. But that came away super cleanly in fairness.

[00:08:53]And the eardrum looking absolutely fine.

[00:08:56]It's dutty. It's really tiny.

[00:08:58]Half a centimeter, a quarter of an inch on that one. So two questions for Ask the Audiologist this week.

[00:09:05]Steven the Waxing. Lyricist, hi Steven, said are there environmental factors that can increase wax production?

[00:09:10]And Shul7578, couldn't get my numbers right then.

[00:09:15]Question for the comic book, does climate impact how much wax people produce? So these are kind of related questions, right?

[00:09:20]Environmental factors and climate. I would say the biggest factor we're talking about here as far as the consistency and the amount of wax we produce is genetic.

[00:09:29]It's hereditary, okay?

[00:09:31]So your genes dictate how much wax you produce and then also the consistency of the wax you produce as well.

[00:09:38]Environment can play a part in that.

[00:09:40]So what you'll find is that, you know, I would say your genetics is probably by far the biggest trigger.

[00:09:46]Followed by environment.

[00:09:48]Followed by age, believe it or not.

[00:09:51]Because we talked about this oil that we produce in the outer part of the ear canal, which keeps the wax nice and soft and keeps it migrating out.

[00:09:57]As we get older we produce less and less of that oil. So I'd say the ranking goes genetics, climate, age. Probably climate and age are not far off on a par, actually, thinking about it.

[00:10:08]But those are the three biggest factors that can cause problems for people. So hopefully that's answered both of your questions, guys, thank you very much for putting those into the comment section well that's it for this video today guys i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did voicing it over uh don't forget to smash that like button and subscribe if you're not already but until next time take care of your ears take care of yourselves and take care of one another and we'll see you for the next one bye everybody