hi everybody my name is Rhys Baba I'm the audiologist here at audiology
associates we upload new earwax removal videos every Monday Wednesday and Friday
at 9 p.m. UK time so please consider subscribing hi everybody this is Rhys
barber from audiology associates thank you very much for watching our video
today a bit unusual in this one this patience comes through following
numerous syringe attempts to remove what they thought was a little bit of wax and
possibly part of a cotton wall ball there's been stuck in this patience here
so as we start sectioning we can see that we can see the white fibers Jess
there's they get sucked into the that the Zollner tube so we know this is
cotton wool on the outer part of the ear canal the difficulty when you have
cotton more like this sometimes is the wax coats the outside so it looks like a
blob of wax the it's really difficult to remove that with suction so we're going
to use the crocodile forceps to get a grip on this so you can see out it pops
but behind that was another cock mobile so which is a bit unusual sometimes it
does happen so we use down a little bit of suction just to tease a piece of this
cotton wall away from the main bulk of it so we can go in there with a
crocodile forceps and get a grip the reason we do that is sometimes to get a
grip you have to push into the cotton wall ball which can push it further in
so I like to get a piece off the edge if we can so second cotton wool ball come
away a little bit of wax on the end of the camera and I can see that there
appears to be more cotton wool so we carried on using the micro suction just
to take this away the gentleman was aware that he'd use cotton wool to clean
his ears but was a bit vague about the detail so I'm not too sure whether this
is the end of cotton wool buds or whether it's a cotton wool ball that's
been put in there but I know he's been having difficulty with his hearing for
such a long time that I think what's happened is that he's tried to clean as
he is once with cotton wool and got it wedged in there and then tried to use
maybe caught more buds and cotton wool again to try and clear this out just
through sheer frustration so we've ended up with lots and lots of
cotton wool in here so we're just teasing another piece away from the main
bulk of the next piece of cotton wool so just taking this I started to lose count
after a while of how many pieces we took away I think from my count I think
there's about 12 in here between both ears so just counting the larger pieces
like kind of these sections you just saw coming away there rather than a small
straggly bits that we get away but yeah I think it's about seven from the one
year and about six I think five or six from the other ear sister yeah so let's
see what's going on here so we've got more strands of the cotton more coming
away just gently teasing this away sometimes you're lucky and it comes away
in rather large blobs but a lot of the time what you get are these kind of
slightly thinner strands detaching from the main bulk here which is what we can
see so just still using the cotton wool ball there's a little bit of dead skin
around the outside edge there there you go you can see that wrapped around
because obviously where this cotton walls been sat on top of the skin all
the skin underneath is degraded the the doctors were prescribing drops thinking
this is a wax problem so you imagine all those drops any oil you produce in the
ear canal they're sort of dead skin tissue so they're all soaked up by these
cotton wool balls so it's you know it's written quite quite aggravated in here
and you can imagine just how uncomfortable this would have been for
the patient they really didn't hold much hope of me being able to get this out
because they had so many failed attempts with with syringe and irrigation that
they really didn't think we were going to be able to clear but as you can see
we're working our way through it I've got another thin strand coming away
there I mean this was you talking the ear
canals about an inch long and this cotton wall went from front to back so
quite a bit and compressed together as well so not all loose bits some of these
pieces we took away would really hardened up over time as well so this is
you know probably a couple of years worth of cotton wool has been stuffed in
here so we don't expect this ear canal to look particularly pretty at the end
of it because we're gonna have with loads of dead skin tissue in this or
this this whole canal needs to dry out after we finish but you can see another
piece coming away there okay so we've got to the end of it so we can just
start to see the eardrum you can see that it's been pushed right up against
the drum so we're just going to clear some of this kind of looser skin there
you can see just it's just been wet over such a long time it's just peeling away
in layers there's one thing I do want you to take a look at we're gonna put a
circle on here in a second because we had to stop for a bit because
we start to see some flexion to the actual drum itself as we were suctioning
you'll see it just underneath this circle you'll see it pop back it there
did you see it pop back into place so we're gonna call it a day there we're
gonna stop on that ear and just let all that dry out and all repair itself it
should look absolutely healthy after a couple of weeks but this is the second
year now so same patient second year by my count I think we took seven pieces of
cotton wool out of the first year and what I can see is we've got some wax
here at the entrance to the second canal so this is just plain old plain old wax
here so we'll get rid of that first of all there we go
and then behind that you'll start to see that kind of familiar white of the
cotton wool again so there we are so this you can see it looks like wax on
the outside but this is actually a piece of cotton wool here so really kind of
pink underneath all this or really aggravated canal wall here
I think this patients been really kind of jiggling stuff in there as well to
try and free this up which is just compacted everything so not not the most
comfortable for the patient to have removed either so we're gonna have to go
really gently with this so sticking with the crocodile forceps now just trying to
get a grip on a large pieces just start to pulling a large piece towards the
entrance to the canal new yep hope that one pops so that's the first
cotton wall ball out now really based on the other we are expected to see maybe
one or two in here as well but you can see here the redness the pinkness to the
canal wall there just underneath the suction tube the fact that the cotton
wall has been so compacted in here it's actually pressed against the canal walls
and formed perfectly to the shape of the canals and just time to try and work my
way around the edge at the moment just to try and lift this up and you can see
that the white dead skin there underneath has been trapped underneath
this cotton wall and you'll see a bit of mist into the camera and things
obviously this cotton balls trapped moisture and everything in here so the
ear canals like really it's kind of quite humid with all this wet dead skin
and all the drops have been sucked up in here so you're just getting with a
misting to the lens on the camera there every so often I'm just taking some dead
skin tissue away there you can see there's a piece here at the attic so
just pulling that bit down just draws a little bit more the cotton ball out with
it so going back to the section now just to try and get a leading edge on this
next piece of cotton well you can see it was quite a lot up there in the the
attics or the the ceiling of the ear canal
so as we pull you'll start to see that coming away so that's the second cotton
wall ball out just pulled the next set of fibers forwards because it's been
compacted against the next sensor there's more cotton more than here again
you can see just pulling the straggly pieces away they're back in with the
section now just a tidy up get all these looser fibers into a into a more kind of
usable strand that can come away so we get a better grip on it with the
crocodile force app you can see they've got a long strand now so we should be
able to get a good grip on this with the forceps there there you go
it's just start to pull away a little bit just as we get the next section
coming forwards so what we're working on here is the third cotton wool ball which
is kind of breaking down I think as it's coming out there
there we go so that's the third one you can see a little bit of blood there as
well at the bottom where this has been really jammed in here it's it's pressed
against that can i wuold agreed in that canal wall
don't forget the skin in the year canals paper-thin it's just a couple of skin
layers thick and the blood vessels are just below the surface so if you've got
this aggravating rubbing back and forth in there then it's gonna be really you
know you are gonna run the risk of having some bleeding in here and just
how far this is pushed into the canal as well it's it this is gonna be really
uncomfortable for this patient I think we're up to that this is the fourth I
think this is the fourth cotton wall ball that's coming out now there you go
and behind that is more cotton wool
you can see that next ball of cotton more coming away there and behind that
is more cotton wall so we're still going so I think that was the fifth that was
the sixth there was a lot of blood attached to that one which I'll show you
in a second you can see why because it's been pushed right up against the eardrum
and actually caused the bleeding on the drum and bruising there and bleed into
the canal war so this has been jammed in so far it had caused quite a lot of
quite a lot discomfort these are the pieces we removed so they're not small
pieces actually run out a ruler again this time but you can see it there in
centimeters patient was really pleased to get this out here so much better
afterwards obviously we go there if this patient
comes back to us just for a follow-up we'll pop that video on few sheet and
see what happened just gives you some idea of what we had to take away well if
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