My son is 4 years old and off and on has had some mild ear problems,but has never had tubes or anything extreme to do with ears. He has, however, had asthma- and has been sick a lot the past couple years with his breathing , but hasn t been diagnosed with an ear infection since he was about 2 years old, so it s been a few years. Again, it has been off and on complants of his ears hurting every so often. Like every so often as in, once every week, or couple weeks. Well... tonight his ears acting up again, it s hot and red and he keeps pushing his hand on it and laying on it. Earlier today while I was brushing my teeth he was behind me and grabbed a qtip. We know Qtips are bad for ears, but he sees us carefully use them sometimes-on the outter ear, and he tried without asking. I turned around, seen him and went to take it out of his ear, and discover the whole end that was in his ear completely dark brown. Yuck. So I carefully cleaned his ear and it was a mess! Just that one too, his right ear. As I cleaned it out, I seen a big dark spot near the entrance of the inner part, and got it out, and it was a huuuuuge ball of brown gunk. Is this normal? Do you think it sounds like earwax- Or infection. I m just a worried momma, with no insurance (for either of us right now) looking for answers- anything?