Swimmer's Ear

[armyscuba]

Hi Nay,

.

Placing a few drops of mineral oil or lanolin into a well dried ear canal before each dive may be a better idea.


DocVikingo

Back to My Post about Olive Oil..and it's readily available in Your kitchen..I'm not DocVikingo..but My remedy is along the same line. That was nice to see. The other thing with Olive Oil is that We keep a bottle in our Dive Gear. Eye dropper for Your ears and rag to wipe down Your knife after being cleansed in fresh water will keep it from rusting up..Food for Thought from an Old Army Grunt..

 

[H2Andy]

i use baby oil to keep my knife rust-free.

i take it putting johnsons baby oil in your ear is not a good idea, right?

 

[armyscuba]

i use baby oil to keep my knife rust-free.

i take it putting johnsons baby oil in your ear is not a good idea, right?

My thought..from living off My knife Andy is that I would eat Olive Oil..I'm not particular to the taste of Baby Oil though..

 

[Charlie99]

Ear wax is one of those things where Too Little and Too Much are both a bad thing. The right amount is a very good thing.

It might take a little bit of experimenting to find out what works best for each person.

Water trapped behind excess ear wax will sometimes cause me problems. Diving regularly avoids the problem, but if I don't dive for a couple months, then an over-the-counter remedy such as Debrox gets rid of the excess.

Undiluted rubbing alcohol and commercial products such as SwimEar (sp?) (95% alcohol, 5% glycerin) do a good job of removing excess water, but I find that they are too harsh and irritate my ears. If I do use these, it is just a quick application to remove some trapped water.

My preferred mixture is 50/50 alcohol and vinegar, left if each ear for 5 or 6 minutes. The mixture is really more like 35% alcohol, since the rubbing alcohol is 70% isopropyl alcohol.

The theory is that by soaking the outer ear canal in vinegar (acetic acid) solution for 5 minutes, the skin pH is lowered to the point where it won't support bacterial and fungus growth.

 

[ShoalDiverSA]

I just went through employment medicals and it was noted during the audiometric test that I had a build up of wax (non-occlusive) in both ears. This is a new thing to me since my dive physician gave me a stern lecture regarding the use of cotton buds in the ear canal. I have dribbled some olive oil into each ear, but given the difficulties of inspecting my own ear (!), I have no idea what the effect was.

I see that you recommend Debrox, Charlie. What is the generic formulation for this medication? Are there any other recommendations for removing excess ear wax (without inciting the wrath of my dive doc.)? I would like to avoid visiting the Doc on a monthly basis for an ear inspection and cleaning.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[DocVikingo]

Debrox is carbamide peroxide.

Best regards.

DocVikingo

 

[Charlie99]

Debrox is carbamide peroxide.

6.5% carbamide peroxide, the remainder being glycerin.

 

[itziar]

Hi Nay, I had a fungal+bacterial infection in on of my ears about three months ago. I had a similar experience to Hoppy's. My ENT had to clean the ear before the medicine started to make full effect. He also adviced me to prevent any water from going into the ear canal until he had declared me clean. I used silicone ear plugs to cover my outer ear while I was taking showers or washing my hair, and of course, I had to be out of the water (diving and swimming) for about a month before I was declared cured. I had to visit the ENT three times in this process (evaluation and initial medication, cleaning and further medication, final check up).

From there onwards I am using a mixture of vinegar and distilled water after diving, as recommended in this and other threads of scubaboard. Fingers crossed...

Good luck,

Itziar

 

[fdog]

Used to use 50/50 isopropyl alcohol and white vinegar when I was teaching, and in the pool for 2 hours/day, every day. Kept it in a small dropper bottle, a couple drops in each ear after towweling my hair dry. After rocking my head all around to slosh the drops in the ear cannal, I used the towel to catch the excess that would dribble out.

Never had an infection or irritation.

Still use it when diving alot. Still no problems. Not broke, not going to fix (change) anything.

All the best, James

 

[ShoalDiverSA]

Thanks Doc and Charlie for the clarification. I will be consulting my sangoma this afternoon for a bottle

Cheers,

Andrew

{Translation: Sangoma = Traditional Healer/Witchdoctor (Zulu)}