For Holly, ear wax build-up has been a persistent and painful problem. When Holly had her ear wax removed by the NHS, she was amazed at how much her hearing improved. But now that the service is no longer available, she’s trying to tackle the problem at home.
Holly tells us why she hasn’t opted for private treatment and shares her concerns about treating herself. She describes how her blocked ears are impacting her social life – and how her grandmother faces the same problem.
How my hearing problems started
“My hearing problems started when I was very young, before I went to school. I remember teachers asking me things and I couldn’t hear them, so I would just smile and nod a lot.
I had ear infections repeatedly as a child. I remember lots of painful earache and think I had a burst eardrum at one point. I had lots of antibiotics for my infections, which I think might have stained my teeth.
I vividly remember coming home once after a school trip. I was around six years old, and we’d been to a Beatrix Potter ballet. My parents had had a Chinese takeaway that evening and left some for me. But when I got home, I was in so much pain from an ear infection that I couldn’t eat. I remember feeling sad about that. Thankfully it didn’t put me off Chinese food!
I seemed to grow out of my ear infections, but they came back when I was an art student in Norwich. I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I remember this feeling. I can’t put up with this.’ I wasn’t registered with a GP in Norwich, and I remember walking from surgery to surgery to see if anyone would take me on. Eventually I did get registered, but they couldn’t see me immediately. I ended up going to my doctor at home, who couldn’t tell if I had an infection because there was so much wax in my ear.
Help from the NHS
At that time, you could still get your ears cleaned by the NHS. I had it done twice and both times, everything was suddenly so clear. In fact, initially everything seemed too loud – it was quite disorienting. I was shocked at how I’d obviously been walking around not really hearing properly. It had just become normal.
The next time my hearing became a big problem was when I went on holiday to Kefalonia with a friend. I’d had a cold before I went and the pressure on the flight blocked my ears up really badly. When I got off the plane, I couldn’t hear out of either ear. They were properly bunged up and I could tell that nothing was going to easily clear them. It was awful. But I wasn’t going to let this spoil my holiday – I took the view that I was going to swim anyway. I think my ears drained a bit during the holiday, but the flight home made them worse again.
I realised how bad things had got when I was trying to sort out my Oyster card in a London underground station. Obviously, it’s a busy, loud environment, but I just couldn’t hear the person behind the ticket desk. I can’t lipread, but I remember watching their mouth, trying to figure out what they were saying.
Private treatment my only option
I really started worrying at that point. This was the longest and worst period of not being able to hear that I’d ever had. That’s when I went back to the doctor. I was told that my ears were completely blocked with ear wax, and I should put drops in, but I’d need to get them properly cleaned. I was shocked when I was told that cleaning wasn’t available on the NHS anymore.
The GP receptionist gave me leaflets about places offering private cleaning. I thought, ‘How on earth do I choose which one is best? How do I know they’re as well trained as the nurses in the surgery? What if something goes wrong?’ I had absolutely nothing to go on. And it was going to cost around £60 or £70, which seemed like a lot of money. I didn’t really want to pay that kind of money. I didn’t know what to do.
The uncertainty of self-management
I got Otex ear drops in the end. They came with a pipette that you fill with water yourself. It took a long time, but I tried to stick to the right timings and not get impatient. When I did eventually squeeze the water into my ears, huge chunks of wax came out. It was quite shocking and horrible. My ears felt better, but since then I’ve always wondered whether I managed to get all the wax out properly.
More recently I was offered a free hearing test at a national pharmacy. When I went, the audiologist looked in my ears and told me she couldn’t do the test because she couldn’t see anything because of the wax. That was interesting, because around that time, I thought I could hear OK. She recommended drops, so I did the same thing as before and again, quite a lot of wax came out.
When you’re treating yourself, there comes a point when you think, ‘I hope I’m not damaging myself by constantly doing this.’ Sometimes you feel you might have got a bit of wax out but your ears don’t feel clear, so you keep going. And then you worry that you’ve been impatient and haven’t put the drops in for long enough. Then you think, ‘Actually, I don’t really know what I’m doing. For all I know, I might be making it worse.’
It’s very tempting to stick something in your ear to try and get the wax out. You’re obviously not meant to, and I’m wary of doing something like that because of what happened when I was a child. But someone else might try that.
It can be painful when your ears are blocked with wax. If the weather’s too cold or too hot and the pressure is changing, you get a kind of crackly feeling. If it’s particularly hot, I think the wax actually melts a bit, and it’s wet and itchy in my ear. I’ll find myself putting my finger in my ear to deal with it, which is really quite yucky and embarrassing – especially if there are other people around.
Explore our advice on how to manage ear wax build up safely.
Social isolation and embarrassment
It seems like a small thing – but it has a big impact. It’s hopefully only temporary, but essentially you are still experiencing deafness to some extent, and you have to cope with that. I have friends who love going to places that have loud music and food markets with lots of noise and hustle and bustle. It’s occurred to me that I don’t like those places because I can’t hear as well as everyone else.
Group scenarios are the worst. If you’re in a restaurant with a lot of people around a table and you can’t hear properly, you end up withdrawing a bit. You can’t follow conversations, so you just give up and become isolated. There’s only a certain number of times you can say, ‘Sorry, what?’ before you give up. Then someone says, ‘What do you think, Holly?’ and you don’t know what to say. You’ve been sitting there pretending you’re listening, because you can’t just stare blankly at everyone.
An intergenerational problem
My nan is experiencing the same thing with ear wax. She wants to get her ears cleared but again, she doesn’t want to spend money, so she hasn’t.
I’m in a better financial position now but even so, I wouldn’t know which private service to go to. Even though I can afford to access those services, I don’t have the medical knowledge to know which service to use – it’s still not accessible for me. It’s also the principle of the thing – I don’t want to have to pay to have my ears cleaned. But if they got worse, like when I got off the plane in Kefalonia, then potentially I would have to pay, because that’s hard to live with.
In an ideal world, my nan and I would both be able to get our ears cleaned for free. It’s not just a nice thing to do, like having your eyebrows waxed. It’s something that’s needed, so that you can actually hear and participate in society. Knowing ear cleaning is a postcode lottery makes you feel even worse. Someone’s decided, ‘No, you can’t have this.’”
