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"  Unless you have no TV, no Internet, or live in the Cave of Forgotten Dreams, you are probably aware by now that last night&amp;#039;s Girls rang in at an uncommonly high gross-out quotient.  Not only did Adam have graphic, allllmost non-consensual sex with Liz from Roswell (as she will forever be known in my heart), but Hannah&amp;#039;s OCD led her to stick a Q-tip too far into her ear and puncture her eardrum. Nooooo! As is often the case with Dunham, was art imitating life? Yup.  You guys I can&amp;#039;t hide anything from you. I badly injured my eardrum with a Q Tip. Who here has done this? How long will it take to heal? \u2014 Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) February 3, 2012  My question is: Did you guys ever learn not to clean your ears with Q-tips? Much like the sex talk, my mother skipped this part of my adolescence (in lieu of the awkward &amp;quot;birds and the bees&amp;quot; conversation, she left one of those A Girl&amp;#039;s Guide to Your Breast Buds And Oh God Please Don&amp;#039;t Hate Yourself manuals on my bed and we never spoke of it again). But the reality is: Yes, you can puncture your eardrum with a Q-tip or any other sharp object while attempting to clean it out. In most cases, specialists advise you to avoid manual earwax removal: As with other natural bodily productions, earwax is basically your friend, manufactured by your glands to protect the eardrum from water, injury or infection. Not to throw some TMI at you guys, especially on my first day at this venerated institution, but I myself have Obsessive Earwax Trouble*. Being left to my own devices as a bewildered post-grad in New York, I used to clean my ears with a bobby pin. I KNOW. So with this in mind, Lena/Hannah, might I recommend Debrox\u2014the soft, non-bloody way to cleanse your ears?  I&amp;#039;d suggest putting just a few drops of Debrox or 3 percent hydrogen peroxide (I have used both) in one ear. Don&amp;#039;t push it in, just drop it. You should hear some fizzing. That&amp;#039;s good! Keep them in for a while, then put a washcloth against your ear and flip your head to the other side, letting the residue drip out. Repeat with other ear. Problem solved! Now you just have the rest of your life to fix. *One time I discussed this extensively on a date. Shockingly, never heard from him again. For more musings from Anna, follow her on Twitter. Photo credit: istockphoto "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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