The impossible dream of him ever glancing my way for a comment other than to push in my hips or keep my elbow up higher when lifting a sword during a down thrust was dashed when, during a break, he asked if I’d been out in the sun. I responded that no, it was Seattle in the winter. Of course not. Why do you ask?
“Your ears are really dry.” With that, I slunk out of the studio as fast as decorum would allow, cursing my Swedish roots to the edge of the land from which we came. Why me? Why my dry ears?
It’s not like I hadn’t known about my dry ears for oh, say, twenty years already, since I’d hit puberty, nor had I used every method, tip, trick or remedy to rid myself of this evil malady. But no. It’s with me, like my long legs, thick hair and fat, cow milking hands, the progeny of my generations of Scottish cow farmers I’m sure (Vikings conjures a more flattering image, but I lack the prerequisite red hair).
Thankfully, I’d forgotten this ego-reducing incident until I had my hair back in a baseball cap and my 6 year old brought it up. “Mom, why do you have dry ears?” Off goes the cap, down falls the hair, covering my offensive, though perfectly shaped ears and I wonder…why can’t we all be perfect? Would it have been so hard for God to have extended his love from the outer edge of my ear to include the inside? It couldn’t have required more than a nudge fingertip to give my inner lob the moisture it needed.
Until this unanswered question of the universe is answered, I must rely on man to solve the problem. First, why?
Some common reasons include…bad hygene. People who don’t bathe more than a few times a week get the dry, crusty film. Over bathing can cause a similar result, since the oils on the skin get washed away and the surface becomes like the scalp–dry and flaky. The Mayo Clinic cites actinic keratosis which are lesions on the skin. I’ve never seen nor suffered from that. From all my research, ‘itchy’ is a common side effect, but I’ve never had a single ear ‘itch.’ This is attributed to Swimmers Ear or an ear infection and so on. All kinds of remedies are available for this, none of which apply to me.
Here’s what I’ve had and tried…(it comes and goes, like Vivaldi’s Four Seasons). During the spring and summer, my ears are mostly fine. Enough moisture, enough sun, the proper balance of both. Fall and winter, not so much. My mother hypothesized it was in line with the amount of water I consumed….
Natural remedy #1….more water and liquids. This certainly has helped, perhaps more than anything else. My scalp and skin produce similar results, why not my ears?
Natural Remedy #2… less moisture…in other words, when I shower, I must pull my hair back and get ALL the moisture off every surface of my ears. Just like my scalp, when the moisture isn’t 100% gone, my scalp goes berzerk.
Natural Remedy #3…the weekly ‘scrape.’ It sounds more disgusting than it is. We scrape our teeth two times a day (brush) we scrape our scalp by combing, we scrape our legs, faces (men) and armpits with blades, why not scrape our inner ear.
Here’s what you do. Take the end of a tweezer (mine is round and thin but not sharp) and gently run the flat edge along every area that is dry. This gets off the old, invigorates the new.
Natural Remedy #4….Along with the water, start taking Vitamin E or daily Omega 3 gelcaps. This is a long term solution–it won’t take effect for a few weeks. When I take one or both daily, my ears are nearly perfect on the inside, plus my hair is glossier and skin/nails much improved.
Natural Remedy #5 (quick fix-see tip)….Borage Oil.
Things that DON’T work. Lotions are terrible. It just turns the dry skin in to the ears version of pancake mix without the benefit. Oils are worse. The oils plus dry skin is a mushy goo, that still then needs to be scraped off. gross. The last thing that doesn’t work are Q-tips, or the soft removes. The marketing folks would have us believe pushing dry skin around is the same as getting rid of it or improving circulation. Not so.
Tip:
Now if you are completely desperate, getting ready to go out and you pull your hair back (or get your hair trimmed) and see the white dry skin, scrape it off (gently, so as to not make the skin red). Then apply a little bit of Borage oil from a gelcap. Borage is one of the beauty world’s best kept secrets. Years and years ago, I was told of a great concoction to use on my face: primrose oil, vitamin E and borage. You can find my recipe here). That’s fine for the face, but much too thick and heavy for the ears. Borage is light, and just the barest hint, when applied to the ears, will eliminate the dry and cracked look, allowing you to go out for hours and not worry about being embarrassed.