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Wow! Is That Hair in Your Ears?
This discussion is not about the hairs (cilia) of the cochlea, where acoustic energy is translated into electrical energy, but about ear hair. You know, the hairy ear growth that one sometimes notices in a personās ears, but almost never says anything about ā as if talking about it were taboo. You can talk about it behind oneās back, but never to their face!
There are many jokes made about men having little or no hair on their head, but when is the last time you heard anyone say, āWow, you have really hairy ears,ā unless they have been beyond their third martini.
This post is actually a continuation of the current series (Parts 1,2, and 3) relating to the human ear canal and earwax. What does ear hair have to do with earwax? As will be discussed in this, and in later posts, it can have an impact on preventing earwax from being released naturally from the ear canal.
This post is not intended to offer suggestions on how to comment gracefully (if even possible) on oneās ear hairs. This may not be one of the most pleasant topics, but is something that hearing professionals should be able to address.
From an histology viewpoint (Perry and Shelly, 1955), the ear canal skin has three appendages (derivatives):
Ceruminous glands
Sebaceous glands
Hairs
Last weekās post concentrated on the ceruminous and sebaceous glands in the ear canal skin. In both cases, each empties into the outer portion of the ear canal through hair follicles.
This week the focus is on the ear hair itself, hair arising from follicular cartilage of the outer cartilaginous portion of the ear canal or from the tragus, antitragus, or helix portions of the auricle/pinna.
Ear Hair
The hairs that can be found in and around the ear fall into two different categories:
Vellus hair ā tiny, short, thin, and almost invisible (Figure 1 left image) that grow in most places on the human body. At the ear, they are present in the very outer portion of the ear canal (in the outer cartilaginous area or on the pinna itself). The density varies among individuals. When short, it is often referred to as āpeach fuzz.ā Strands are usually short (less than 2 mm), and the follicle is not connected to a sebaceous gland (Marks and Miller, 2006). Marks and Miller also identify other cases of irregular vellus hair growth as shown in Figure 1 right image, with such hairs growing to as long as 20-40 mm.
Vellus hair is mostly non-pigmented. However, during and after puberty, dihyrotestosterone (DHT) present in the body causes vellus hairs on the arms, legs, faces, and in other parts of the body to grow thicker and darker, into āterminalā hair ā to a greater extent in men than women (Jackson and Nesbitt, 2012). With aging, the normal growth cycles of hair (growth, resting, and falling out phases) get out of whack, and as a result, some hairs grow longer before they are shed.
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