What’s The French Equivalent Of An Audiologist Who Cleans Ears?

Who does audiologist things like ear cleaning in France and can I set up an RDV without an ordinance from an MT?

Your médecin traitant if they are old school. Otherwise they’ll send you off to pharmacie for a poire and some cérulyse. If it is totally impacted then an oto-rhino-laryngologiste can help, but might have to wait a whike for an appointment.

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That’s what Madame was advised: pomme and cérulyse, from the pharmacy.

I tried it, having the same problem. Worse than useless: it seemed to compact the problem. And the advice in the UK was always NOT to put anything in your ear smaller than a cauliflower.

So I’m hoping there’s a proper alternative.

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A poire + product? Works a treat for OH.

The only people who’ve been able to clean ears for me have been ORLs but, as @JaneJones said, there can be a very long waiting list. It might be worth talking to the secretary of your nearest ORL because she may have suggestions?

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Thanks all, but what’s a “pomme” in this context?

I’ve tried all sorts of sprays, but I suspect that wearing earbuds during French summers has got both me lugs proper plugged.

It’s a rubber ball with a pointy bit you put in your ear. You squeeze it and the warm water you put into it goes into your ear. That’s after you’ve softened the wax with the cérulyse.

The blue thing in this article: Comment bien se nettoyer les oreilles : les méthodes inoffensives et celles à éviter - Deavita.fr

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Ah, I have one of those ear wash bulbs, but it’s done nothing for my clogged ear.

Essential to soften the ear wax thoroughly first.

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I’ll give it another go.

Thanks all.

Over a couple of days preferably

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Some thoughts: If you have narrow ear channels (OH does) you may have to go to an ORL department. We managed to persuade our MT to do it for him because the wait for the ORL was months.

Once you start having this done you will always have to have it done.

If you get early warning your ears are beginning to gum up again try self-help: warm olive oil followed by hydrogen peroxide (but not if you have a damaged ear drum. Never do self-help if the latter.

Swimming is a major problem for OH. If he swims these days he uses swimming ear plugs plus a tight swimming cap over the top.

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I have to say that the wax-softening stuff I used in the UK did nothing whatsoever for me! Perhaps modern formulations are better ? :thinking:

Alas, our MT retired a while back and the remaining MTs in the area are fully subscribed.

I’m happy to my ears CT’d annually if it brings my Left <> Right balance back and helps my 02:00 tinnitus.

Otex drops in the UK, don’t know if they are available but also bicarbonate of soda drops seems to be popular but not as good IMO. They want a lot for a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Yep, me too, less than useless. I’ve been trying this for over 6 months and both ears still blocked. Air travel hasn’t helped, if anything, it has made the situation worse - all that pressurisation/depressurisation taking off and landing.

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In that time you could have seen an ORL specialist and got it properly sorted. :slight_smile:

OK - I’m going to add to the grief about ‘gummy ears’ - pin ‘em back. I’m here in the UK for a couple of months. I have had problems with one ‘gunged up’ ear. So I pop into the local B—–ts, make an appointment with the Hearing Centre, get ears checked. Yes, bit of impacted wax - we’ll make an appointment for 1 weeks time, in the meantime use EuroOl (medical grade olive oil) and return in one week. Then treated with micro-suction on the ear - It worked; one appointment - one treatment - within the space of 1 week - sorted. At a cost of £60 but that would cover further free treatments if first session wasn’t a success…….
So easy, easy, easy. One of the benefits of the UK !! Sorry guys.
And the advice about using olive oil - although an old one - is still valid today. According to the Hearing specialist it does work - but one has to be persistent, and treat the ear(s) every few days. But if it fails - then micro-suction, at ‘The’ local UK high street chemist - is the only answer !!! Next time you’re in the UK guys - and need this treatment - you know which chemist to visit !!

My GP seems to think that the earwax lysis solution is the only cure I need, so getting a referral is a bit of a challenge.

My MT said she was tòo busy when on the advice of a close friend I accepted a lift from her to the doctor “because you can’t take risks with eyes or ears you must show the doctor”.

I’d been trying to tough it out and see what happened. Ear had woken me up early by bleeding quite a few big spots onto a few tissuea and pillowcase when I turned my head and manoeuvred it to let whatever it was out. It felt like something pointed trying to get out that woke me up then the blood. Of course not much but looks a lot and no more after about 15 minutes.

But at 7.15am on a bright Sunday morning in August getting any form of medical help very unlikely. Urgences probably not warranted even if I’d had transport and highly likely short of staff due hols anyway. Decided to only take action if it got worse. I figured it was my fault and using Qtips had finally caught up with me. Google said if it’s burst eardrum normally heals itself so dexided on balance wait and see.

Doc said no burst eardrum (I now think could have been an insect bite just inside ear that had needed to burst like a pimple). Doc told me to buy boxes of little tubes containing saline from the pharmacie, put in ear, leave 30secs-1minute, then drain daily the problem ear, then weekly and weekly the other esr.

Doc not having a good day, said she had people all day every day to attend to that were really sick (vs me. Which kind of cheered me up). I said I’d tried to wait and see which is my normal approach, but the only person I’d ever seen bleeding from the ear was dead at the time, and a friend had urged me to see the doc.

I asked should I see the nurae regularly to have my ears syringed as had my friend ib UK. She said just do the saline. It was pretty scary when I eventually had the couragr to do it the first time.

Frankly I am pretty sure I have impacted wax. Althoigh TBF I have not applied the saline assiduously. As it seems to have no effect. I’m thinking of warming a sealed saline tube to blood hest in a pan of water then trying again.

Not even sure we have that sort of ear specialist above in any town near here. If warming the little saline tube works, I’ll post :slight_smile: