Man contracts infection in his skull after using cotton swabs to clean his ears
One harrowing reason to stop using them to clean your ears
One harrowing reason to stop using them to clean your ears
One harrowing reason to stop using them to clean your ears
You might have heard from your doctor that you shouldn't use a cotton swab to clean your ears. In fact, it's written on most boxes to not put them inside your ear canal at all: the multi-functional cotton swab found in nearly everyone's bathroom cabinet could have a sinister side. In a story reported by last week, one British man developed an infection in his skull from a rogue cotton bit that wandered off its swab.
"A bit of cotton left in the ear may sound harmless, but in this case, it wreaked havoc," states the article. After the cotton bit traveled into the man's skull, luckily stopping short of the brain, he began experiencing pain and discharge from his ear.
Shortly thereafter, he began to suffer neurological symptoms like strong headaches in which the pain was so severe, it induced vomiting. Eventually, he suffered a seizure and was rushed to the hospital, where a CT scan revealed two abscesses at the base of his skull beyond the ear canal —caused by the cotton.
After a weeklong stint in the hospital and some antibiotics, the patient is doing fine, according to , which published the case report earlier this month. Unsurprisingly, his doctors advised him to stay away from cotton swabs in the future.