What treatments work for a build-up of ear wax?
If you have a build-up of ear wax that doesn’t go away on its own, you may need to use ear drops or you may need to have your ears syringed. These simple treatments are usually painless. • Ear syringing usually helps to get rid of the ear wax, but it can have side effects. For example, it can cause infections in the outer part of your ear. Or the water squirted into your ear can damage your eardrum. But these problems are rare. • Ear drops that contain wax softeners are often used to break up the ear wax. • Your doctor may ask you to use a wax softener for a few days before your ears are syringed. But there hasn’t been any good research to show that wax softeners help. We’ve looked closely at the research and put the treatments for ear wax plugs into categories, according to whether they work.
