Ear Candling

[jgoreham]

I have a really ridiculous ear blockage right now, I think you probably could grow potatoes in my gross ear wax like, for real.  My room mate has offered to candle my ear tomorrow night, and I"m just googling around about it.  I see that Health Canada heavily recommends against it and this document suggests that ear candling is illegal.

I'm so

Comments

[devious_angel3]

my mom used to candle our ears all the time as children, and none of us have a problem. She actually wonders if it is why I hear so well. I have only had good experiences with it. I dont see how it can be illegal (thats stupid though as I am in the states and not knowledgeable in other countries laws)

[devious_angel3]

And now that I have read the document from health canada and how many of the doctors recommend alternative treatment? That is a good sign of how they are going to react to something, so I would take that there study only found people who have gotten hurt or had bad experiences with a grain of salt. I would say though that since you dont know the room mate very well, make sure that she cuts a hole in a paper plate and that will keep any potential wax from dripping.

[brigittefires]

From what I'm reading, this is similar to the procedure my aunt used to do on her daughters when they were young. Her pediatrician was on the fence about it but refused to tell her not to do it. My mother the nurse asked around at work (U of Mich hospital) and everyone said NO NO NO. The process terrified the little girls and as soon as they were old enough to fight back (and call my mom to intervene) my Aunt stopped doing it

[evil_erato]

I wouldn't do it. I've done it twice, and both times had horrible ear pain associated with it. YMMV, of course, so whatever you end up doing good luck!

[jgoreham]

I had to look up YMMV on urban dictionary, I learned something new :D

[mermaiden]

I've done it many times, and it always worked. :) I actually did it for my Mum two days ago, who was complaining about her blocked up ear, and pretty much in a few hours after we did it, it was fine. In my opinion, it's fabulous~

[ladymiao]

One of my roommates and I tried it on each other. She said it made her ears feel more "content". I did feel a difference in my ears after candling.. I just don't know what that difference was, exactly.

I don't believe that it forms any vacuum that supposedly sucks out wax. I do think the warmth from the smoke may help loosen wax. I've heard to be cautious about how the candle is held while it's burning to prevent candle wax getting lodged in the ear.

Here are a couple links you may find useful:
http://www.wallysnatural.com/faq.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20070602035618/http://www.abundanthealth.com/art-ec.html