I’m Dr. Stefan Topolski and I’m a well-established family doctor of traditional medicine along with the even older treatments now called “complementary” in Shelburne Falls. For more than 20 years, I’ve been treating people of all ages for all conditions, including urgent care. I have lectured on three continents and continue to teach while taking breaks from serious academic work to write lighthearted and hopefully helpful pieces on health, like this new monthly column, to share with friends and neighbors here in the Pioneer Valley. So here goes:
Ear wax, anyone?
I say, “say-room-in.”
We have a tiny golden gem in our bodies, so to speak, and it’s very under-appreciated if not underfoot. It goes about its job humbly and quietly, never looking for praise and certainly never getting much of any either. It is gentle medicine as nature’s medicines can be. It just flows along and goes along to get along if you get what I’m saying. And yet, it seems to disgust us like so many fluids in our bodies. Why is this? What is it about our liquid bodies or, frankly any part of our inside bodies, that just plain grosses us out?
Now, yes, one can see where some body fluids are just never meant to be seen, I get this. They disgust us. Blood and bile and meat and bones are, well, just supposed to stay on the inside and do their job. We don’t need to see them to get the job done. And if we do see those things a stickin’ out somehow, then that there’s a problem as my grandmother would say — unless you’re a physician and really enjoy looking under the hood, so to speak, and checking in to see how the engine is running.
Our material bodies — the parts we see with our eyes and touch with our hands — are the mechanical parts of this vehicle we call a body, carrying us through life and will hopefully keep running right. Lord knows there is enough pain and suffering already for our souls making this learning journey through a life. Hopefully, we do not need to hurt even more physically than seems necessary.
Cerumen or “say-room-in” is one of those smallest of parts of our bodies, which also does its part to keep us safe and reasonably pain free. Of course things go wrong. Stuff can happen. Or let us say perhaps that stuffing happens to cerumen. And that is a problem. Not just a first-world problem but an around-the-world problem. And being a problem for all people around the world, there is a world’s bag full of home remedies for it. Folks use everything from olive oil to vinegar to hot baths to the old standby of salt water or the newer rocket fuel (in V-2 rockets and such, check it out), even prayers and scares and candles in our ears. And all but that last one help.*
This yellow biological gold does its magic in many ways. It slowly drifts out from deep inside and along the walls towards the outside of our bodies. It moves more as we talk and chew. It does not kill bacteria as much as create a heavenly nirvana for the most harmless of bacteria on our bodies to flourish en masse, and that keeps the few bad ones away. This golden flux smooths and lubricates and coats and protects like a fine arctic 0W20 (ask your favorite mechanic). Yet, it is just gooey enough to grab and hold bothersome bits of dirt, dust and bugs** and drag them out along with it on its journey to the sea of sunlight at the end of the tunnel.
Without cerumen, we would be a might bit more uncomfortable and sad, and frankly, fairly deaf in this world. We would miss some of these beautiful sounds of leaves falling, water burbling, song birds singing — not you, Blue Jays — babies laughing and children playing. So the next time you feel bad about your ear wax. perhaps you may want to take a lesson from some of our more religious folks and say a prayer of thanks for being alive to suffer another trip to the doctor to flush out your ear engine’s oil and hear clear again.
And to keep your ear drum and your hearing safe for heaven’s sake no, no Q-tips, no tissue-covered bobby pins,*** please, really, no, nothing smaller than an elbow goes in that ear of ours without a caring and trained professional holding onto the other end of it.
There you have it. Ear wax. A human body’s unspoken hero. You’ll never look at it quite the same way again.
* Ear candles are neither “Hopi” medicine nor effective and can cause burns. They look the same after burning whether they are in an ear or not. We can do the math in physics and show that they neither create enough updrafts nor melting to make any difference, yet if any of us just did a simple logical science experiment and burned one ear candle in an ear and one not in an ear and compared the two … they look just the same. It’s called science. So they are useless. Though the love, care, kindness and intention in using one to care for our loved ones does have healing value — we just do not have to look to science to justify it.
** In my first year here in West County working with Dr. Kit French, I anesthetized and dragged a 1-inch big whole live and still flapping moth out of a child’s ear. It certainly didn’t get past the ear wax. Or the ear drum for that matter.
*** Wikipedia says bobby pins became popular for the new “bobbed” hairstyles in the 1920s when our grandparents were young and wild and carefree … and the truly beautiful never truly goes out of fashion.
Dr. Stefan Topolski is an academic physician and country doctor serving Franklin County. Dr. Topolski welcomes any questions you may have at public@cottagemed.org. His opinion is for educational and informational purposes and should not be used for diagnosing or treating any health problem without first consulting with a licensed physician. Never disregard or delay seeking professional medical care because of something that you read. The views expressed here are those of the writer, their research colleagues and no other organization.