You can clean your ears yourself. There are effective ear drops with a (I think) carbamide peroxide solution that softens and dissolves ear wax; then you easily flush the remains out with warm water and a bulb syringe.
It is much more effective than a doc gouging at your ears with a hard instrument.
It's easy peasy to do.
I wear earplugs when riding motorcycles and clean my ears often. I've done this for years.
I cleaned my ears before seeing an ENT in Santiago about a problem, and the doc was amazed and said even he could not clean ears that well.
$7.50 at Wal-Mart