Excessive ear wax causing vertigo?

[rickford66]

For more than a year now, I have suffered from a mild vertigo.  It was happening often throughout the day, but was the worst when I layed down at night.  It was quite an annoyance.  My wife kept telling me about little wax balls that kept appearing in my ear canal.  I have always used q-tips on my ears daily.  Anyway, I began to wash my ears "better" by running warm shower water into them for a few seconds each morning.  A little unconfortable, but doesn't hurt.  After a week or so of this, the vertigo had diminished greatly.  Then, I forgot to keep this up.  After a few weeks, the vertigo came back, along with the wax balls.  I started washing again the same way and the vertigo is almost gone again.  Also, the wax balls are gone.  First, can too much ear wax really cause vertigo, or is this a coincidence?  Second, if so, what is the safest method to clean the wax away?  Shower water under pressure makes me a bit nervous.
Thanks.

[saxsamatic]

Scott..
I use children's Benadryl to stop the vertigo.
take only 1 teaspoon at bedtime...
you should wake up fine...
take 1/2 teaspoon upon waking before dizziness start again..
this is the only thing that works for me...
I been to the ENT, on meclizine, Dramamine ect...
Again, CHILDREN"S BENADRYL ALLERGY

[Kevin07]

I had severely impacted earwax giving me a constant off balance feeling. The doctors I went to said my ears were clear and couldn't see a problem. After about 6 months Id had enough and purchased a 70 cent plastic syringe from the local pharmacy and filled it with warm water and flushed out my ears. Nothing appeared for 2 nights but by the 3rd night I couldn't believe the amount of dark wax that came out. The relief was instant! No more dizzy feelings. I'm not suggesting you try this yourself but putting warm water into your ears for a few nights and then getting your doctor to try syringing  your ears may just solve the problem. And don't use cotton tips!

[bmorris115]

Cathasson (Catherine) I don't know if you've realized this since the time of making your post which I'm replying to here or the most recent post you'd made in this thread (Jan 18, 2012), but I just wanted to inform you (for your sake and the sake of others reading these comments) that Ear Candling is a well known/ long since debunked new age health industry scam that uses (as many of the purported "cures" or "remedies" in the alternative medicine realm do) the power of placebo to convince users of its validity.

Ear Candles can be potentially dangerous, in fact (I've read of numerous accounts where nurses and medical care practitioners have claimed they've had to deal with patients coming in with ear canals closed shut by the melted candle wax dripping into their ears, and requiring surgery to extract the solidified build-up).

There are many, many articles that you can read and videos that you can watch online that should offer enough clear proof to you that Ear Candles do not actually extract wax from your ears at all and are in fact just another huge scam in an industry filled with scams (no different than magnetic/ balance bracelets etc, etc):

Here are a few examples
(Article):
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1103/how-do-ear-candles-work

(Video - divided into 2 parts):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RLbwGoWaCc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF3FIwzVgSE

Cathasson, you said that you used 5 and 6 candles in each ear, respectively, and they "were full of wax and yeast".  I suspect that had your vertigo not put you in a state of near desperation by that point, those kinds of results probably would have been proof positive to you right then and there that you were being had.

What do you think you would have found in the candles if instead of using only 5-6 per ear, you went with 50 - 60 per ear? Well, I'm sorry to say, but you would have found the same amount of that so called "wax and yeast" in all of them... wouldn't have mattered if it was 5 or 500,000,000.

[cathasson]

I have used ear candles for the wax also ear drops for ear wax. The candles can be purchased at a health food store for a couple of dollars each. The ear wax drops are sold at any pharmacy over the counter.  I have also had a lot of luck at the chiropractor with my vertigo. If it's not earwax then sometimes it is a problem between C4 and C5 on the spine. Once that is adjusted my vertigo will go away. This is after trying most medical treatments....physical therapy, valium, sea sickness patches, etc.  Good luck.

[Vertigoboy]

Gday, I read with great interest your comments about candling ! What is this actually ? I have had Vertigo now for nearly 3 years, I have only had the vomiting way back when I first got it in the US on my holidays, since then I get some dizziness most days and some are good days and some are off days. I find its worst in the dark.

[windingdown]

This will blow your mind but I have to tell someone!! I had bad vertigo myself started in 2008,  started taking alerga, anyway, in Nov 2010 I had chest pains and after a few days went to the Dr, he said my lungs were a bit frozen and gave me a breathing treatment with a nebulizer, anyway, after that my chest pains all but went away in about 15 min! AMAZING? Well the amazing thing is since I got my own nebulizer and filled my script my vertigo went a way!! OMG YES I mean while I was doing my breathing treatments every 6 hours then cut back to 2 a day I was dizzy and vertigo free!!! NOW I have CFS and I think that makes me breath shallow, but since I now get more air to my brain I think that was a key? Well, and I stopped my treatments and used the rescue inhaler, mind you I dont have asthma, only allergic asthma they said.. but when I stopped using the nebulizer I started to get dizzy again. SO Im ready to go do a treatment now.. ANYONE else have this happen to them? MAYBE SOME OF US just need more air to our brains? Love to hear from anyone..