My suspicion from regular use of ear plugs is that the wax sticks to the plug every night. I use a new set every night. Pretty wasteful, but man, I need my sleep.
When my wife showed me the Loop ad, I told her it's a scam.
But now I'm the one using them. Haven't done as much work researching earplugs as some posters above, but like the Loops. For comparison, I have earplugs at work, that feel like someone was raping my ear every time I'm putting them on.
So, there's definitely earplugs and earplugs. If you need to use them, might be worth few hours and few bucks spent on testing/research.
Oh yeah, I bought a few different types of ear plugs to test them out. The silicone putty and the loops left my ears sweaty. I'd pull them out at night to dry them out. Tmi, I know, sorry, but yeah, I tried 'em.
I used to wear them every night and they definitely improved my sleep.
But then I also had instances where my ear was blocked with wax for several days.
But you also shouldn’t be surprised if someone challenges the implications or merits of your anecdata, for the benefit of others that might take it as good advice.
If there's enough earwax in there to get pushed around and compacted, then it seems like there is some other issue going on? Is having small mounds of wax per permanently living in the ear canal normal for some people?
I have been wearing ear plugs every night for over a decade and cleaning my ears with cotton swabs at least every other day for my whole life and never once had ear wax build up.