The Science of Hearing is a group of independently owned hearing clinics from across Canada. One of the issues we deal with on a daily basis involves impacted wax.

This affects our ability to conduct hearing tests or take ear impressions. In many cases the wax is impacted because the patient has been attempting to clean their ears with a cotton swab. The audiologist/hearing instrument specialist can often see the concave imprint in the wax, made by the cotton swab. The best advice is to never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear. Below is a wonderful article by the Huffington Post describing the issue.

A big thanks to Amanda Kirkpatrick, Audiologist from Saint John for forwarding the article.