Wallace Lee, from Weymouth in Dorset, put his hearing problems down to a career working in the noisy aviation industry or old rugby injuries.
He decided to visit a doctor after buying a home endoscope kit that helped him spot a small white object.
Mr Lee said he was delighted and that it was an "instant relief" when the unusual blockage was finally removed.
Mr. Wallace Lee is 66 years old and a former navy engineer. He believes the object got stuck during a plane journey.
"Five years ago, when I was visiting my family in Australia, I bought these little earplugs that you can put different attachments in,.......
......depending on the noise you want to phase out on an aircraft. One of these little attachments had lodged in there and it had been in there ever since."
Mr Wallace and his wife began to worry that he was going deaf as a result of his progressive hearing loss.
He purchased a home endoscopic kit, which enabled him to see a little white object in his ear.