Why do you get dizzy when you clean out your ears?

Answer 1

The outer projecting part Pinna, the inner small tiny bones- assembly of hammer, anvil and stirrup, the eustaschian canal and the innermost ear drum are the main parts of the ear. And then, there also is the delicate protective sheet of tympanum. The wax secreted in the ear or any external particles entering through pinna, will reach only up to tympanum and the next immediate and adjacent ear drum is secure. All external sounds reaching the ear are transferred by vibrations through tympanum to the ear drums, which are transported by nerves to specialized centres in the brain to analyze. The semi -circular canals in the ear drums are filled with a highly sensitised liquid termed cochlea, which magnifies the vibrations transferred from the tympanum many times like a booster, so that when they reach the distant brain, there would be enough to analyze. For good or bad, this cochlea is entrusted with a dual function. Apart from being the essential component of a listening post, it is also responsible for maintaining the equilibrium of the human body, i.e., our balance. When we clean our ears mechanically or chemically, most often when mechanically, the movements reach upto tympanum and instantly are transferred to cochlea. Due to severeness or abruptness of such movements, if cochlea is excited too much, it cannot revert to normalcy by itself for a time. During that time there is no one there to supervise our equilibrium, except our knee- joints and feet. We feel dizziness, which is body's prior warning and a sure sign that our equilibrium is tilting and we are going to fall. The same thing happens when someone is strongly beaten with the open palm on the ear in such a way that the air inside the external ear does not escape for a while and is compressed inwards, resulting in violent and unruly vibrations of cochlea.

Why cochlea is endowed with this dual function, for our unluck, is not discernible.There has been so many mysteries and puzzles inside the human body, of which this is just one. Positioning the appendix in the crucial curved aperture of the small intestine joining the large intestine, only to cause the agony of appendicitis to man, is another. It has no known functions!