hi everybody this is rhys barber from
audiology associates thank you very much
for watching our video today
uh we're doing our top 10 of my favorite
videos
this is number four uh this was
certainly one of the more unusual ones
i've done
uh we get asked a lot about so strange
things we take out of people's ears
um cotton wool is one of the things that
we take out most often you can see
here we've just got a little couple of
strands of cotton wall
but i've never taken this much
cottonwool of
anybody's ears before or since
um this gentleman had 12 cotton wool
balls or ends of q-tips cotton bud
cotton
buds uh pushed into between both ears i
think we took seven out of one and five
out of another so you can see what we
have here
uh is lots and lots of cotton wool that
that is impacted
against one another cottonwool is always
really really difficult to remove
using suction because of obviously it's
got a fibrous nature to it
so what happens is when you try and get
a suction grip on it just pulls through
the air pulse through the suction
so we're using the crocodile forceps
here to get a grip on this
i remember this he was such a lovely
gentleman that came through
kyra brought him through uh had been
complaining of
loss of hearing for a little while had
been complaining of a bit of earache
had been along to the gp surgery they
taken a look said yeah it's just a ear wax
problem
uh but it's not until you start teasing
this apart that you realize
exactly what was going on here so we're
using at the moment a combination of the
standard size on the tube and the
uh forceps just to try and really get
this out
uh you can see how this would have been
so uncomfortable blessing because
it you know they were just pushed in
there they were literally
rammed one on top of the other uh which
was
just no gap in there and imagine all
that drying nature
absorbing all that you know when you
bath or shower that would have been
swelling up and how uncomfortable that
would have been
but uh we're really getting the grips
with this ear now we've taken i think
it's either two or three out of this
here already
it's trying to get a good enough grip on
the cotton wool
um that you don't just tear the fibers
through i want to try and get
i want to get the whole thing out if we
can
in one piece so you can see what i'm
trying to do here is work around the
outside edge trying to find a more solid
piece there you go there's another one
gone
a more solid piece of cotton ball uh end
there to take away
and there's another one i remember
saying
to you know the the the the lady that
come to this chap you know there's
there's more in there again there's even
more again uh as we started taking this
away i've never seen
so much uh in one person's ear before
there we go so that's come where you
pulled that next section
forwards let's get a grip on this
hopefully this will take a nice big
chunk of weight
yep there we are so you imagine
all the natural oils that we secrete on
the ear canals
uh you're all embedded in this all the
your
bath water shell water all those kind of
things all embedded in
this gentleman was so lucky that he
didn't get a raging infection in here
which would have been really complicated
to try and treat because
what you get sometimes when you do get
these kind of embedded cotton wool
uh ends in here is that when you get an
infection the icon naturally swells
so what you get then is you've got the
source of the infection which is the
cotton wool but
jammed down in there and then the ear
ear canal swells around it which means that
you can't really treat the source of the
infection
so they're very very lucky uh that that
didn't happen in this case where there
was just so much in here
so we're getting to the last couple of
pieces here just trying to
use the suction to reposition this last
uh
last couple of copper balls here
i remember lots of people to say yo
they're not couple balls they're the
ends of cotton buds
yet they probably are it it's just
easier to refer to them as cotton wool
balls because they are the end of the
cotton cotton bud
there you go it's coming away really
nicely now
still can't see the eardrum though at
the moment possible
just might be just starting to get a bit
of a glimpse of it there to the bottom
left corner
wow that's a good piece so you see that
all whole sections coming away
dead skin there like all around the
outside edge of that piece we just
removed
still more kind of dead skin this is the
old obviously these were the first ones
to go in so these are one of the oldest
ones coming away you can see all that
kind of see the liquidy
uh white mate around the outside the
edge all that kind of
thick dead skin debris soaked into those
uh
okay these guys are not eating while
you're doing it but all those kind of uh
this
all soaked into the to the end of the
cotton wall there
look how the skin looks in there i was
really really degraded bless him
and you can see why you can understand
why all that trapped on top of it
this skin not being able to migrate out
very well
there we are you can see the eardrum
there
and then we're going to take a lot more
you can see a little kind of pimple here
there's a little bit of redness
that's the red spot we're marking up
there is where that
where the cotton buds have been so
impacted against the eardrum it's
actually been rubbing against the skin
of the uterus
so so lucky i think if if that gender
jammed any more in there that would have
perforated his eardrum
so we've got the same issue now this is
the other side so you can see on first
glance it does look like ear wax it's very
dark it's brown in color
uh it's got the consistency of maybe
slightly harder ear wax it's not until you
start kind of just
teasing this out that you realize what
exactly what is going on behind it
there we are that's the front section
gone
i see a lot of sort of dead skin in
there as well on this side
now as you start to pull it you'll see
the fibers start to pull apart in here
there you can see those little tiny
little strands
so we're gonna go back to the crocodile
forceps so you can see that this ear
ear canal is quite
a little bit narrower than the other
side
gently pulling the ass just torn away
you can
as we pull you can see the wetness in
here
um as we start to pull these look as we
as we get a grip
even on it you can see it's squeezing
moisture out of these uh
out of these little cotton wall ends
luckily as we're pulling this out it's
drawing the next section look at that
look at that coming away there's gonna
be a lot of humidity in here we've just
released a lot of moisture
that's been trapped in there for quite
some time
you can see can you see how pink and
aggravated that outer part of the ear
ear canal has been
now this bit is is wedged this piece in
here
trying to find any loose
any loose sections to come away it's as
we're lifting that you can see
it's pulling on this the dead skin
underneath and lifting that up as well
i've put a bit of olive oil in here um
because sometimes when we talk about
trying to suction with the
cotton wall it's drawing through the
fibers the olive oil will sometimes help
to loosen that away a bit
there we are we've just got a grip on
that bottom bottom left section let's
see we get this really
this bottom section here and we're going
to lift that up
there we are let's see how that's
affected
yeah it's still quite a bit there's a
piece there at the top which i'm just
trying to tease down with the
crocodile forceps there look at that
piece coming away
you know it's really stretching out it's
detaching the layer behind it
if we can use that top section note our
advantage we pull that down it's going
to have it's going to pull this
this deeper uh tougher section that's
further in
forwards and allow us to get a better
grip on that if it doesn't pull it out
completely there we go
good grip there look at that coming away
it's pulled those strands out from the
layer underneath
so it gives us something to work on now
as far as this next section is concerned
they go it's pulling it every time we
draw this out it's pulling more fibers
forwards which is which is helping us
because it's helping us to get a good
grip there
just trying to tease that out using the
wiggle on this but
what we're effectively doing is sort of
working this into a point so we can pull
this a bit more
you know bunch the fibers together work
it around almost like um
almost like making a rope if you like
we're kind of spinning it and turning it
around there
get a good grip on this next section i'm
trying to see but
i try to see below it but that's not
working um
wow so much cotton wool here
just so so much
there now we've got a good grip on there
we are
you can even see a little bit of pink
there at the base where it's been
rubbing it there's probably a little bit
of a blood blister or there was in there
somewhere where this has been rubbing
back and forth
and there's still more in here
still more we still haven't got to the
eardrum yet so i'm trying to
do the same thing again trying to bunch
the fibers together kind of bind them
around
so we can get a stronger grip then with
a crocodile forcep
that's put see how it twisted that
bottom section you see our move as we
pulled this out
so it's drawn that deeper section
forwards now
i know what we're going to see behind
this
there we are
and there's more
and there's more behind that so i'm
going to try and pinch it a bit further
on
yep still more
how we're starting to fog the lens on
the endoscope there's so much moisture
being released here as we take all these
pieces that's been trapped behind this
piece of cotton wall
and we're still pulling cotton wool out
my goodness goodness me
okay wow you can see
there look look at how that that whole
section has been pressing against that
eardrum it's actually caused bleeding
there's blood in the base of the ear canal
but
unsurprising when you look at this i
mean look you see blood on that one they
run about eight centimeters
all of this came out of those two ears
it's just
absolutely jam-packed full of cotton
wool
that is incredible i've never ever taken
anything out
i've never taken that much out of
anyone's year before and i remember
sitting down and thinking this is just
it's just crazy just the amount that was
in there and
no wonder that patient was in so much
pain because it was just so pressed
against the eardrum
rubbing back and forth in there must be
so uncomfortable for him bless him
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