If You're Not Supposed to Put Q-Tips in Your Ear, What Are They For?

Never stick anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.

Like most people, I use cotton swabs to clean my ears in case there's wax in there. This is THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO because they are not designed to go in your ears. In fact, the little cotton ball at the end can dislodge itself from the stick and hurl itself towards your eardrum.

That's what happened to me. A specialist was needed to extract the thing, which wasn't even visible without some special equipment. I could have LOST MY HEARING, you guys. Serious.

Luckily no damage was done. According to Dr. Flashman (yes that was his real name), the best way to avoid wax buildup is keep your ears dry after a shower by using a blow dryer on a light setting at arms length away.