DD2 has black gunk in her ear

[Bathsheba]

My mother (a nurse) used to use an eye dropper and pour warm oil into our ears to loosen wax... let it settle then make us lie on a pillow with an old towel until it drained out.... not sure if doing that is safe and/or recommended any more. My GP said warm water is just as good.

[deletedit]

Bathsheba: that sounds tame compared to how doctors clean ears. They get a doodat full of warm water with a squirty mechanism like regular household misters, shove that in there and squirt away madly. Then you are left with a bucket of earwax and a serious case of ultra-dizziness.

My partner gets impacted wax and has this done quite often.

[Alan]

Warm olive oil is fine to put in ears. When I worked in hospital emergency dept we used to use it to kill bugs that had crawled into ears.

[Bathsheba]

Thanks for the confirmation Alan My mother has quite a few out-dated notions... she's in her 60's and is still nursing but I find some of her ideas a bit dubious... but you can't argue with her!

Elf: I've heard about that! You'd think that would potentially rupture the ear drum! Glad we don't seem to make much ear wax in our family... my FIL did though and after his treatment he was amazed to hear birds tweeting again! LOL