
An Itch That’s Hard To Scratch
Reddit user Velvet admits their strange guilty pleasure, and it’s definitely something unexpected. They say, “I love a good deep ear scratch. I keep a pack of bobby pins just to scratch my ears with. Sometimes I use a straightened paper clip. Q tips are too soft and flimsy. The feeling of being able to scratch that itch we all feel in our ears is incredible.” According to doctors around the world, doing things like this is extremely dangerous. You should never use something like bobby pins or paper clips inside your ear. It can lead to permanent damage to your eardrum.
Your eardrum is a thin membrane in your middle ear that vibrates to allow you to hear sounds. A tear in the eardrum can cause a variety of painful symptoms, including sharp ear pain, ringing in the ear, drainage, and even hearing loss. If you must use something to clean your ears, do it safely with a Q-tip or a saline solution kit. You can buy saline ear cleaning kits at your local pharmacy and at stores such as Walmart. While a perforated eardrum heals on its own, it is not worth the pain and hearing loss you’ll get by using a bobby pin or paper clips to scratch the inside of your ear.