I love Q-Tips, love the way they swab the entire ear. I come dangerously close to sticking them too far inside the ear canal, each time pushing the little stick and its cotton puff a tiny bit deeper.
I’ve never had a Q-Tip mishap, never had to be rushed to the emergency room to get the cotton out from inside my eardrum. But it’s like playing with fire, stretching to scratch that itch. I know if I go too far, the pain, magnified by the chambers of my waxy inner ear, will be crazy-making unbearable.
I’ve known people whose ears produced so much earwax they have to take monthly trips to the doctor’s office to get big chunks removed. I can imagine the relief they must feel, like being brought up after an ear-bending dive, or brought down from the milky heavens, ears popping their way to normalcy until finally, ah, stillness.
A co-worker once told me how he almost fainted from getting his earwax removed. He described a firehose-like contraption, jets of water so strong I imagined the wax being blown from inside one ear out the other. As he talked, flopped in his chair like a ragdoll, I pictured torture contraptions, the doctor a balding man with an eye monocle. I felt grateful that on a scale of zero to mucho waxo, I rated average.
Ears have always been part of our family lore. The big Dumbo floppy ears of Sandy. Narciso was said to have the biggest ears among Sandy’s brothers. All of them had stiff hairs growing out from the inside and blackheads on the backs of their ears.
Mom had Maniere’s Disease when I was a kid, and I can still recall the onset of an episode. How she’d panic, behind the wheel of the Caprice or in the check-out line at Safeway’s. I remember the two of us fleeing the store without our groceries, peeling off in the big blue Caprice down Griegos Road for home. Mom’s eyes wild, and me, meek and scared in the front seat. I knew once we ran through the front door she’d fling herself into the entryway bathroom and puke her guts into the green toilet. Later, after crawling down to the bathroom off her bedroom, she’d spend the rest of the day curled on the bathroom rug, calling for help — water, a wet cloth — while I crouched in my closet, crying.
Mom says the reason she got Maniere’s was because Grandma used to treat ear aches by having Robert pee into a cup and pouring the hot urine down the offending ear. Can you imagine? Mom told us later, when we were adults. Yeah, but isn’t pee antiseptic, I always said, trying to be helpful.
I never remember Q-Tips in the house as a kid. Mom used Bobby pins to clean her ears. I can still see her circling the pin inside her ear, round and round, as if she were a wind-up doll. She used the curved end of the Bobby pin, and she pushed hard, much harder than one would expect. She always mined plenty of wax, cleaned out the pin and put it in the drawer for next time.
I wonder if ear cleaning, like manners or a person’s voice, the color of eyes, gets passed on through DNA. I bet if I took a poll, I’d find that every one of my siblings loves the feel of a good ear cleaning with a sturdy Q-Tip. We might eschew Bobby pins; unlike Mom we’re willing to spend money on equipment made for the job. But I know we all probably inherited the kinds of ears that pop while flying and carry an almost constant, faint tinnitus.
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hmm interesting piece. i don’t like using q-tips for my ears — always afraid i’ll do more damage than good.
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part of americana–cool unusual piece
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yb, I’m with you on this one. I also love Q-tips. I probably go too far into the ear, but use them after every shower.
I use them for so many purposes. I recently used them to dust the nooks & crannies of Mom’s beds headboard when we moved her room.
And a a child, my Mother used bobby pins also!And as you know from another post I am a huge fan of ear candles!
Your co-workers experience gave me the chills! D
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ybonesy, so many unusual body details. Do you think the urine cleaning of the ears was common there in your grandmother’s day? I have never heard of it.
Your question — I wonder if ear cleaning, like manners or a person’s voice, the color of eyes, gets passed on through DNA — is a good one. There might be some merit to it. Mom told me to be aware – we have the ears of her father. And hearing loss comes gradually to us, but young.
There is definitely something to the shape of the ears and the way we hear, loss of hearing later in life, that is passed down. I have also noticed that the shape of my ear captures water whenever I shower or swim. It’s always driven me nuts! I try to avoid getting water in my ear and spend a lot of time jumping up and down to get it out after I do. 8)
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diddy, so kind of you to dust the nooks and crannies for Mom during the move. That’s kind of an ornate headboard. You are so sweet! 8)
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QM, I had forgotten to mention in my comment that I also have heard of the urine cleaning, though I do not know anyone who has ever used the practice. I read about it in one of my trusty Foxfire books! Ugh! D
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diddy, I wondered about that — if it was an ancient remedy. If you found it in your Foxfire book, then others were using it at the time as well. Whoa – hard to imagine these days.
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Thanks for the comments, all.
I’ll have to ask my mom about the urine-as-medicine for earaches. I do know that my grandmother used a lot of home remedies, not to mention she was superstitious. But I will look into it and report back.
QM, I also have issues with water in my ears if I swim. I do that jumping up and down post-swimming, which you describe. I also have this thing where I fling myself sideways onto a bed, over and over. 8) Do you get any pain on plane descents?
diddy, if we ever have a chance to meet in person, let’s definitely candle one another’s ears 8) . I agree with QM…nice of you to dust those nooks and crannies.
lissa, good to stay away from Q-Tips. Someone I know recently got one of the cotton swabs stuck in her ear. Ouch.
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yb, ROTFL – I’m trying to picture you flinging yourself on the bed to get the water out of your ears. Now that’s a new one to me.
Yeah, my ears do a lot of popping during every plane ride. Not a lot of pain though. I do spend a lot of time opening and closing my jaw as wide as I can to let the pressure go. Probably looks crazy. It’s a wild ride.
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yb, you’re on! Well as long as we don’t pee in each other’s ears!:) D
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yb, I love how you explore an area of life we tend not to mention, our ear canals! When my mother was little she had to go to the hospital after using a dirty bobby pin for ear cleaning.
Have you ever heard of ear candling? I just saw someone have it done a few nights ago. After the wax was drawn out, they were passing around the paper plate where the technician (or whatever you would call her) had put the wax she had drawn out. I took a quick glance, and then lowered my eyes. I’ve seen the insides of too many dirty ears in my day as a teacher. I’ll run the risk of a Q-tip any day.
Great post! Very entertaining.
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Yes, yes, Christine, I’ve done candling on my entire family (father and siblings). It’s kind of scary but so satisfying to get that gunk out of my ears.
So your mom used bobby pins on her ears, too? I wonder if that was something women did then…you know, pull a bobby pin from a curler on the head and then clean. QM, you’ll have to ask your mom if she ever did that. Christine, I’d hate to think what happened to cause the hospital visit — perhaps a cut and infection?
diddy, no peeing, I promise…LOL. And I haven’t had a chance to find out anything more about the pee remedy.
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diddy, if you and ybonesy ever meet, I’m going to steer clear of the two of you, at least until I know nothing strange is going to happen. (Both Gemini’s are you?) I don’t want to be anywhere near that ear candling!
ybonesy, I’ll ask Mom next time I talk to her if she ever used bobby pins in the ear canal. I don’t remember it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. 8)
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I’ve heard of using a baby’s diaper that they had peed in to get rid of thrush in their mouth but never pee in the ear.!! I used a lot of old remedies in my time and they worked.
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And yes I’ve used bobby pins to clean my ears, also. I always sit still when I do though. T the 3rd was cleaning his ear with a q-tip and walking around, he bumped his elbow and torn his ear drum, when he was a teenager. He was lucky it tore along the edge and didn’t affect his hearing.
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Yeah, MOM, your ears must have been burning 8)
Ouch, just thinking about that Q-Tip going in the ear, yikes. Good tip on being still while you use any of these products.
The baby’s diaper pee for thrush sounds pretty wild. Hmmm… I’ll have to ask my mom if she’s heard of that one. Good ol’ pee. So many uses for it. 8)
QM, before you know it, we’ll have you lying on the floor with a cone coming out of your ear. Just wait…
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ybonesy, uh….I don’t know about that one! I’ll try to keep an open mind. 8)
Mom, I had forgotten that about T’s ear drum. Ouch. Baby diapers and thrush – I had no idea! What *is* thrush?
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yb, ok I found the urine home remedies for earaches in my trusty Foxfire books! It is in the very first edition of many books. To cure an earache “Warm a spoonful of of urine and put a few drops in the ear”. There are quite a few other bizzare remedies listed also, though I would never choose to try any of them! D
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Cool, diddy. Wow, now I really need to ask Mom. I called her today but then forgot to ask her about this. Tomorrow…
Oh, QM, thrush (LINK) is a yeast fungus that grows on the tongue and roof of the mouth. Usually white. Not rare, yet not all babies get it.
What I didn’t realize was, the same fungus is the cause of diaper rash. So odd that one would use a diaper as a remedy.
As for causes, the fungus is found in our mouths at any given time but kept in check. Illness or stress can cause us to get out of balance and the fungus to become a problem.
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ybonesy, Ugh – I had no idea. Thrush sounds terrible. I guess it’s something most mothers know about. It sounds like the way something like cold sores work — I know people who get them when they are stressed out.
diddy, wow, can’t believe you found the urine remedy in Foxfire. Do those books have dates on them of when the remedies were popular? Are they chronological? Or do they write them up as they find them. Just curious.
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The first Foxfire book was published in 1968. Foxfire was first introduced by a high school teacher named Eliot Wigginton & his students as a magazine in 1966. They would travel to remote mountain areas of Rabun Gap, Georgia.
The contents are compiled from interiews with the poorest of older people living off the land in the Appalachians. Very few of them had transportation.
The magazine took off & soon was compiled into a book. It was so popular that there are many. I think we have 11 of them. The first book has 380 pages & the rest are about the same in content.
The school could provide no monetary support, so it was up to Eliot carried the burden of the cost. What a fantastic teacher!
I will share our collection with you when you visit.
I’m sure that a lot of the practices in the books are still being used today.
D
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Fascinating account. I was completely caught up in your story.
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Thanks, Deborah.
Hey, diddy, I finally talked to my mom about the different “remedios,” as she calls them. She was surprised to hear that the warm-pee remedio showed up in your book. She said her mom used it for earaches all the time. My mom said she had thought it was a sort of brujeria, or witchcraft.
Other remedios her mom (my grandmother used) —
** thinly sliced potatoes raw and dipped in vinegar, then laid across the forehead — used for headaches.
** tomato slices on the feet — used to draw out fever (this was one from her friend Natalie, who Mom calls “Nat-lee” )
** cloves — for toothache.
Mom was curious if any of these showed up in Foxfire. Let me know (if you happen to come back to this post).
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