WHEN a doctor told IT business consultant Kit Lun that she had an ear infection caused by using cotton buds, she thought she was hearing things.
Thirty-nine-year-old Ms Lun was astonished because she, like most people, thought that harmless-looking cotton buds are good for keeping ears clean.
But it turned out that her thrice-weekly habit of cleaning her ears with them actually ended up infecting them.
Using cotton buds, or any intrusive object, on a sensitive area like the ear is a big no-no, according to doctors.
Eye, Nose and Throat (ENT) consultant Dr Kenny Pang declares: 'It is unnecessary and could be harmful to clean your ears with cotton buds.'
The doctor, who is also director of Pacific Sleep Centre, an ENT centre in Paragon on Orchard Road, explains: 'Cotton buds bought off the shelf are not sterile and may cause infection.'
Apart from the problem of the buds not being sterile, the process of using the cotton buds can damage the ear-canal, says Dr Mark Thong, associate consultant in the Department of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery - at the National University Hospital.
'If the user is too aggressive (with) the cotton bud, he can injure the very delicate skin in the ear-canal and then it will become prone to infection,' he says.
'Even if he is gentle, the risk will still be there, too.'
Doctors contacted by LifeStyle say that such cases are common.
They see, on a weekly average, between two and four cases of ear infection caused by the use of cotton buds. Dr Pang adds that the use of cotton buds is behind half of all ear infections he sees.
There is a more yucky side to this budding ear problem.
Dr Thong says that every two to three months he sees cases where the buds fall off and are left in the ear without the patient's knowledge, causing hearing problems and infections.
'These people come to me with ear problems and, as I'm cleaning their ears, lo and behold, I see an entire cotton bud inside their ear and they don't even know about it,' he says in a phone interview with LifeStyle on Thursday.
The ear woes don't just involve cotton buds.
Consultant dermatologist at the National Skin Centre, Dr Mark Tang, says that 'the problem is not so much with cotton buds, but people using unhygienic devices to dig or clean their ears such as matchsticks, ear diggers or sticks.
This can lead to unintentional skin trauma or breaks in the skin, which can lead to ear infections.'
This is especially so for patients predisposed to recurrent skin infections such as atopic eczema - a chronic inflammatory skin condition, Dr Tang says.
Repeated or very severe infections of the ear canal may lead to hearing loss.
Improper use of cotton buds may cause the ear drum to be perforated, or push ear-wax further into the ear and cause hearing problems.
It can also damage what is termed the 'migrating properties' of the skin.
Ear canal skin is special and migrates - a medical term for moving - towards the outside, and as it does so, it carries wax along with it.
That is why the ear is self-cleaning and will generally not need ear-cleaning, say medical professionals.
In Ms Lun's case, she had to spend about $800 and undergo months of treatment, at various hospitals and clinics before consulting Dr Pang, to cure her ear problem.
'Now I don't use cotton buds anymore - I've promised Dr Pang not to,' she says.
