Hearing is an important sense, but it can get impaired for a variety of reasons. If you are having trouble hearing out of one or both of your ears, you may want to go to the doctor to find out why. It could be due to a problem within your eardrums, or it could be a problem caused by an excessive amount of earwax in your ears. Having earwax is normal, but having too much wax inside your ears can prevent you from hearing properly. Here are two things to know about earwax and your hearing.

How earwax causes hearing loss

Having a lot of earwax is normal for some people, but when there is a lot of earwax present, it may present a higher risk that you will lose your hearing. The good news is that earwax does not lead to permanent hearing loss, but it can lead to temporary loss of hearing.

Earwax normally works its way out of a person's ears, but there are times when it actually goes deep into the ears causing a blockage. This blockage can prevent sound from reaching the eardrums, and this can lead to a loss of hearing.

For most people, this is a process that occurs gradually. In fact, you might not even realize how much the wax obstruction is affecting your ears until you clean all the wax out of your inner ears.

How to clean the wax out

If you are having trouble hearing and believe it is due to a buildup of earwax, you may want to try cleaning your ears out at home. Using cotton swabs, which are made for removing earwax, is not the best option. These small swabs can actually push the wax further into your ears, leaving you with more trapped wax.

A better option is placing a couple drops of baby oil or mineral oil in each of your ears. You can do this daily to loosen up the trapped wax. After you do this several times, the oil may cause the wax to loosen and fall out naturally.

Another option is to let a doctor, such as at Hearing Specialists of DuPage, clean out and inspect your ears. Doctors sometimes use irrigation devices to loosen and remove the wax. If you go through with this and are still experiencing a loss of hearing, it might be due to a different issue. If this is the case, you may want to call a clinic that offers hearing tests so you can find out what is causing your hearing loss.