The Confessional

[GK]

I had SY over for dinner last week. The food was all within its expiration date. Two of the wines were not but the others made up for it.

Bought a punnet of pre-washed “garden fresh” stir-fry vegies from the supermarket on the weekend. Began preparation Monday, unwrapping the packet and grabbing a hand full to transfer to the pan – and phoaaa! The broccoli sweating under the air-tight cling wrap had gone rotten, and disintegrated into stinky snot between my fingers. The smell was incredible, not unlike fresh cat droppings. Had to open the doors and windows and scrub my fingers to get rid of the pong. No “best before” date printed on the packet, so who knows how long the bastards had it sitting on the shelf. Think I'll get my "fresh" veg from elsewhere now.
My most unpleasant kitchen experience since the fertilised chicken egg and the forgotten bag of potatoes.

[andy_c]

Here's something that's not food-related, but pretty gross.

Saturday morning I woke up and my right ear was completely sealed up by a wax plug, with tinnitus out the wazoo.  This happened to me about eight years ago and I had to have a doctor remove it by pumping water into my ear with a syringe.  I finally was able to get a bit of an air gap between the plug and my eardrum by pressing on the side of my face near my ear, which relieved the pressure (like compressed air inside the ear).  The next step per my doctor's previous orders long ago is to put eardrops in the ear to soften up the wax and make the plug easier to get out.  This is risky though.  If there's a near-blockage, the liquid can get in between the wax plug and the eardrum and form an airtight seal and a total blockage, making for a painful situation.

That's exactly what happened Saturday when I did it.  This causes all kinds of symptoms like losing one's balance and a sharp pain in the eardrum from the pressure.  Finally, Saturday night I was able to get an air gap again and get a little relief.  But the hearing loss in that ear was almost total from the plug.  It was like that all day Sunday.  This morning I called the doctor's office and they couldn't fit me in until next week!  I simply couldn't tolerate the situation for that long.  So I went to the drugstore and got one of those ear syringes.  I remembered how the doctor did it years ago, and with the help of the instructions I gave it a try.  So here I am, sitting on the edge of the bathtub pumping warm water into my ear.  Then splat!  Out comes a plug of wax the diameter of a pencil eraser and about an inch long.  What a relief.  I did the other ear, and I got a plug that was the size and shape of an orange pit out of there.  It was quite hard and must have been in there a long time.

I feel great now, and my stereo sounds awesome!

[blueskynis]

Do you hear differences between cables now? 

[andy_c]

Not only can I hear the difference between cables now, but I can hear the difference from another room while doing the dishes!

BTW, that's the same "Teresa" that John Curl is referring to here.

[scott wurcer]

I lost the hearing in my right ear for 5 days due to impacted wax that got infected. I actually got very scared that there would be permanent damage.

[andy_c]

I lost the hearing in my right ear for 5 days due to impacted wax that got infected. I actually got very scared that there would be permanent damage.

It is very scary when you get that airtight seal between the impacted wax and the eardrum from the ear drops.

I probably wouldn't have attempted clearing it out myself if I hadn't experienced a doctor doing it in the past.  It actually hurt when the doctor did it, but not when I did.  The trick seems to be to shoot the water in at an angle that's as far from straight in to the opening of the ear canal as possible.  If you go straight in, the water can strike the eardrum straight on, which really hurts and can damage it.  I think that was what the doctor did wrong.  Either that or he was just too aggressive with the pressure.  If you shoot the water in at an oblique angle, it kind of swirls around circularly inside the ear and picks up the impacted wax on its way out.  And when you do it yourself, you can adjust the pressure based on how it feels inside the ear, to avoid any pain.  Works a charm and was much easier to do myself than I thought it would be.

[GK]

That Teresa woman is about as intelligent as the only women that I ever seem to be able to meet with a chance of romantic involvement. I’m seriously contemplating castration. Or perhaps I should try getting out a bit more first.


PS.
You might want to start using that ear syringe on a regular basis.

[andy_c]

You might want to start using that ear syringe on a regular basis.

I gather it's not a good idea to do this a lot.  From what I've read, the wax is there to filter out airborne nasties and prevent them from getting into the sensitive inner parts of the ear, to prevent infection.

I may end up doing it every six months to a year or so though.  The impacted wax problem seems to happen as a side effect of coming down with some kind of bug.  That's how it happened this time and years ago when it happened before.  Maybe it's the immune system working overtime or something?

[GK]

I can't claim to be an expert here ( ) but I doubdt that a quick squirt every now and then to blast out any hardened bits would do any harm. The wax that hasn't gone hard and is coating the canal would probably stay put.


On a totally different topic, I used to work at Flinders Uni in the SOCPES (The school of Chem, Fiz & Earth Sci), mosting build stuff for the research labs. Never worked on anything for Dr Cahill, but one of the other techs I worked with is credited at the end of that "Einstien Wrong!" paper of his.

[andy_c]

I can't claim to be an expert here ( ) but I doubdt that a quick squirt every now and then to blast out any hardened bits would do any harm. The wax that hasn't gone hard and is coating the canal would probably stay put.

I'm sure no expert either.  But when I found out I couldn't see the doctor soon enough, I got paranoid and started looking stuff up.  One of the things I found was written by an M.D., The Ear Wax FAQ.

[stinius]

I'm watching FIFA WC and I had never hear about the vuvuzela noise before. 

Nice video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2LPxggvqY

[GK]

Last night I dreamt that I was the world air guitar champion  . OK, no, not really.


http://www.airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/event/agwc-2010


Like, seriously though - WTF?

[scott wurcer]

Last night I dreamt that I was the world air guitar champion  . OK, no, not really.


http://www.airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/event/agwc-2010


Like, seriously though - WTF?

A lot less waste than the 180+dB car audio systems.