By Knight Ridder Newspapers
What’s earwax?

It’s sticky. It’s shiny. But what is earwax, anyway – and where does it come from?

Earwax is made in the outer ear canal. This is the area between the fleshy part of the ear on the outside of your head (the part you can see) and the middle ear. The skin in the outer ear canal has special glands that produce earwax. The fancy name for this waxy stuff is cerumen (say: suh-ROO-mun). After the wax is produced, it slowly makes its way through the outer ear canal to the opening of the ear. Then it either falls out or is removed when you wash. In most people, the outer ear canal makes earwax all the time, so the canal always has enough wax in it.

So why do we need wax? Earwax has two important jobs. First, it contains special chemicals that fight off infections that could hurt the skin inside the ear canal. Second, it acts asa shield between the outside world and the eardrum. When dust, dirt and other things enter your ear, the earwax traps them so they can’t travel any farther.

If you want to get rid of earwax, pay close attention to what to do: Nothing!

Most kids don’t need to do anything special to remove earwax. If you wash your hair regularly, this is enough to keep your ears clean.

Don’t use a cotton swab, your finger or anything else to poke around inside your ear to remove earwax. Your ear canal and eardrum are very delicate, and you may hurt them or cause bleeding. Poking around in your ear can also push and pack the wax in further. Doctors often can prescribe special medicines to get rid of extra wax.

What’s sweat?

You’re biking up a hill, pedaling as hard as you can. You’re almost there and – what’s this? Your back is all wet, and so is your face. Don’t sweat it – it’s only sweat!

Your body works best when its temperature is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When your body gets hotter than that, your brain doesn’t like it – it wants your body to stay cool and comfortable. So the part of your brain that controls temperature, called the hypothalamus (say: hy-poh-THAHluh- mus), sends a message to your body, telling it to sweat. That’s when the sweat glands in your skin start making sweat.

Sweat is also known as perspiration (say: per-spuh- RAY-shun), and it is made almost completely of water, with tiny amounts of other chemicals like ammonia (say: uh-MOW-nyuh), urea (say: you-REE-uh), salts and sugar. (Ammonia and urea are left over when your body breaks down protein.)

The sweat leaves your skin through tiny holes called pores. When the sweat hits the air, the air makes it evaporate (this means it turns from a liquid to a vapor). As the sweat evaporates off your skin, you cool down.

Sweat is a great cooling system; but if you’re sweating a lot on a hot day or after playing hard, you could lose too much water through your skin. Then you need to put liquid back in your body by drinking plenty of water so you won’t get dehydrated (say: dee-HI-dray-ted).

Sweat isn’t just wet – it can be kind of stinky, too. But sweat by itself doesn’t smell. It’s the bacteria that live on your skin that mix with the sweat and give it a stinky smell. And when you reach puberty, special hormones affect the glands in your armpits – these glands make sweat that can really smell.

Luckily, regular washing with soap and water can usually keep stinky sweat under control. Many teens and adults also find that wearing deodorant (say: dee-OH-duh-rent) or antiperspirant (say: an-tee-PER-spuh-rent) helps.

What’s a booger?

Hey, get your finger outta there! Instead of picking them out, let’s learn about those little blobs. Yeah, we’re talking about boogers.

To understand what boogers are, you need to know about mucus (say: MYOO-kus). Mucus is the thin, sticky, slimy stuff that’s made inside your nose. If you’re like a lot of kids, you have another name for nose mucus: snot. Your nose makes about a cupful (about 237 milliliters) of snot every day.

Mucus has a pretty important job – it protects the lungs. When you breathe in air through your nose, it contains lots of tiny things, like dust, dirt, germs and pollen.

If these made it all the way to the lungs, the lungs could get hurt and it would be tough to breathe. Luckily, mucus helps trap this stuff, keeping it in the nose and out of the lungs.

After this stuff gets stuck inside the nose, the mucus surrounds it and some of the tiny hairs inside the nose called cilia (say: SIH-lee-uh). These hairs help move the mucus and the trapped stuff toward the front of the nose or the back of the throat. When the mucus and the dirt dry and clump together, you’re left with a booger.

Boogers can be squishy and slimy or tough and crumbly. Everybody gets them, so they’re not a big deal. In fact, boogers are a sign that your nose is working the way it should.

If you have to get rid of boogers, blow them out of your nose and into a tissue. Picking your nose isn’t a great idea because boogers contain lots of dirt and germs and because poking around in your nose can make it bleed.