Ear wax has never been an issue for me either, I had a friend who had just had their ear canal rinsed by a doctor. And their explanation kinda fit the bill…
So with a new born, new house that I was renovating, and stubbornness that I can handle everything myself, I managed to convince myself that this was the root cause
Not my proudest moment…
Seeing this post made me physically cringe. I am “The Public.”
In my late 20s, my ear started hurting. I was utterly convinced it was just a stubborn clump of earwax. I went to the pharmacy and bought one of those bulb syringes for rinsing ears. The pharmacist calmly and explicitly instructed me: “Make sure you only use lukewarm water.” I went home, washed my ear canal, and nothing happened. I figured I’d just give it a few days to loosen up.
Over the next couple of days, the pain escalated to an excruciating level. I’m talking find-chair, put-my-head-in-my-lap kinda pain. And as my son had just been born, I was operating on a good mix of extreme pain and severe sleep deprivation.
Eventually, i came to the conclusion that hotter water = more wax melting, and if lukewarm water didn’t work, maybe it just needs more heat. The hotter the water, the better chance it has of melting the wax, right? So, I boiled some water. And with zero hesitation, I injected boiling hot water directly into my ear canal.
It was not earwax.
I ended up at the doctor, where I learned that the initial agony was actually a severe case of otitis media (a middle ear infection). And thanks to my brilliant home remedy, I had managed to add a scorched ear canal and a secondary outer ear infection right on top of it.
So yeah. When that optometrist said, “Look at me. I want you to understand that I mean water that has been boiled and has since cooled down,” he was talking to me. I am the guy.
I’ve gone with Authentik for my homelab, and sure there is some learning to do, but it is fairly simple once it’s setup, and in the end it is not that bad.
If I were to choose over, I’d god with KeyCloak as it seems like that’s almost exclusively what’s used in the marked ~ and thus would be good to know in depth
Thanks for the kind words, I am glad that you are here as well!