• JoeCoT@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Not a lot of products have to do that. The one people bandy about is McDonalds adding “Caution: Coffee Is Hot” to their stuff, but the actual coffee spill lawsuit was over coffee hot enough to cause 3rd degree burns. Few things need cautions against their intended use.

    Q-Tips / cotton swabs are an almost uniquely bad tool. It’s incredibly easy to rupture your ear drums. There’s no actual health benefit to swabbing your ears – it just feels good your ears get itchy. A safer tool could be made, but it’d be more expensive, more involved to use, and there’s probably several but I can’t be bothered to find out, and neither can you. They make a product that they know is inherently dangerous to use and has no specific benefit. So it has a warning against doing it. Same as cigarette packs have a warning that they cause cancer, even though everyone buying them knows that and smokes them anyway.

    • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Better ear cleaning tools exist. They are little plastic scoops. I used to use a bent paperclip. Basically anything you can put into the ear canal and then pull/scoop/scrape earwax out is far better than a qtip, which only compacts wax into clumps. The one good use case for the qtip is drying. They can absorb water well inside the ear canal and belly button. I personally use them on my navel after showering since I have an “innie”

      • mackwinston
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        1 year ago

        You can get soft silicone ear pickers with a built in camera now so you can see what you’re scooping.

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I’m going crazy this goddamn thread.

        Don’t shove things into your orifices. Wash your ears maybe with the help of your wet fingers under the shower. If you got fat fingers or tiny ears, maybe use cotton swabs etc on the other most area of the ear canal to clean away excess.

        Your ear is self cleaning. Dont stick anything in it.

        Like do people stuff cotton up their urethra to dry it after peeing? Leave your holes alone.

        • littlecolt@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          I work in a call center where I wear headphones for 8 hours. I also game online and wear headphones at home for an hour or two each day. I am a very oily person. My ears DO NOT self-clean, as you say, given my situation. I use a peroxide ear drop every few weeks to cut down the buildup nowadays, then flush with an ear syringe. You can’t make generalizations. People should get to know their bodies and stay healthy. If I do not do these things I just described, by the way, I start to lose hearing after a few months.

          • shapesandstuff@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            See, you’re describing washing them. Good.

            In ears also dont stop your ears from self cleaning, just means the final stretch has to be washed out i guess. As you do. Dont shove paperclips in there.

            And consider over/onear headphones maybe.

            People should get to know their bodies and stay healthy. If I do not do these things I just described, by the way, I start to lose hearing after a few months.

            Yes they do, through education and medical advice. Not by sticking things into their holes.
            If you got crazy buildup despite washing, you need to speak with a doctor too.