If an excessive amount of earwax has built up inside your ear, your symptoms could include:

• A feeling of congestion in the ear
• Ear pain or discomfort
• Hearing difficulties
• Itch inside the ear
• Secretion from the ear canal
• Odour coming out of your ear
• Dizziness
• Nausea

Hearing loss usually starts with the inability to hear higher frequencies of sound, causing a muffled hearing and issues understanding speech. Even if there is ear wax inside your ear and some of your hearing returns after it has been removed, if your hearing is still muffled, this could mean you have an underlying hearing loss condition. Another possible reason that could be causing your symptoms is an ear infection. If you think either of these might be the case, please get in touch with our experts so they can provide you with advice.

There are four types of earwax removal, all of which offered at Hear4U:

Manual Removal, Microsuction, Endoscopic Microsuction, and Water Irrigation. You can find more information about the procedures below.

Despite being effective, the procedures sometimes involve mild side effects, such as:

• Slight dizziness
• Discomfort in the ear
• Temporary hearing loss
• Sensitivity to sound

These are only temporary and the procedures themselves are completely painless. Injury and infection are extremely rare, but please let our specialists know in case you experience any complications.

No matter how safe and effective, no earwax removal procedure is entirely free of risks. Some of those include:

• Damage to the eardrum in case of error
• A temporary or permanent loss of hearing due to the occasional loud noise in the ear (we do take special precautions to prevent this and will take the device away immediately in case of discomfort)
• Tinnitus (very rare)
• Slight dizziness as a result of cooling the ear canal temperature (rare and of short duration)

In case the wax build-up is too sturdy to remove in a single appointment, our specialists may advise you to attend another appointment and use olive oil spray (Earol) or Almond Oil for 3-4 days prior to the booking to soften the remaining wax.

Water irrigation is similar to ear syringing (spraying water in the ear to loosen and flush out the wax), but is performed in a safer, more controlled manner: it involves a tool called an ‘ear irrigator’ which controls and maintains both the flow and the temperature of the water, allowing for extra precision during the procedure. The device also has the ability to target the wall of the ear and avoid the eardrum as much as possible.

There are a few reasons as to why your ears could still feel clogged after undergoing the water irrigation treatment:

• If your ears were blocked for weeks or months before being cleared, this could have caused a lot of pressure to build up which can take some time to disperse after the earwax blockage has been removed
• A prolonged feeling of fullness might indicate a congestion behind the eardrum, in which case removing blockages from the canal will not relieve the uncomfortable sensation
• The muffled feeling might be caused by an underlying hearing loss (please see General FAQ for more information)