posted January 11, 2005 09:25 AM         

I've done the ear wax candles. And yeah, afterwards when you cut open the used candle there's lots of gunk in there. But supposedly, that's just melted wax from the candle. I honestly don't know for sure. I've never noticed a big difference when using them. A good friend of mine was experiencing a lot of clogging in her ears and use of the candles did not help her.

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Ear Candling Is Ineffective

There is no scientific evidence to support the medicinal claims of heating of the ear canal and the creation of a suction effect, such as are made by practitioners of ear candling. Various research attempts in Canada, including research conducted by Health Canada’s Therapeutic Products Programme, has failed to demonstrate any significant heating or suction in the ear canal.

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Here's another fun article: http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=2&fldAuto=151

And this one is very good:

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Why Candling Can't Work
Since wax is sticky, the negative pressure needed to pull wax from the canal would have to be so powerful that it would rupture the eardrum in the process. However, candling produces no vacuum. Researchers who measured the pressure during candling of ear models found that no negative pressure was created. The same investigators candled eight ears and found that no ear wax was removed and candle wax was actually deposited in some of them! [3]

The notion that the ear canal is connected to structures beyond the eardrum is false. A review of a good anatomy book should dispel this notion. The external ear canal, with an intact eardrum, is not connected to the brain, the sinuses targeted by the procedure (those above your eyes), or the Eustacean tubes (the passageways between the internal ear and the back of the throat). While some claim that the eardrum is porous and quickly allows impurities to pass through, this is untrue. The "impurities" that appear in the collected wax (usually on a paper plate or other collecting device) are nothing more than the ashes from the burnt wick and wax of the cone itself.

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The entire article is here: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/candling.html

But some people swear by them.

posted January 12, 2005 12:09 AM         

I just asked a collegue, and he has done it a few times, and swore by it!

I wont know until I try it, I normally use cotton buds, but my mum said they're no good. My mum says exactly what you've just said Philbird- and she was serious.

posted January 12, 2005 04:03 AM         

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Uh-huh. Not that I'd ever doubt the Teeming Millions, but I prefer to conduct my own experiments. Ear candling is the latest New Age fad, being to the 90s what colonic irrigation was to the 80s. Colonic irrigation was never a procedure I was inclined to investigate close up. But with ear candles I figured, how bad can it be?

Having rounded up a couple of MDs and a volunteer candlee , I went to my neighborhood new-age apothecary shop to buy ear candles. I discovered to my surprise that (1) they were 11 inches long--I'd assumed they were the size of a birthday candle--and (2) they cost $3.50 each. This gets you a hollow cone made of wax-impregnated cloth with a raw-materials cost of maybe ten cents, a profit margin that makes even ballpark hot dogs look like a deal.

Figuring that the MDs' medical education had probably been a little light in the ear-candling department, I also bought an ear-candling manual. In the "theory and research" section I read that "the low flame of the [ear candle] wick creates a slow vacuum which softens and pulls the old wax into the base of the candle." I had no idea what a slow vacuum was, but I was prepared to believe a candle might cause earwax to wick up. ROFL!
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[Candling] cleans the lymphs within this structure as well as the cochlear hairs themselves." Whew, too deep for me. But the manual did have pictures, so even dopes could do it right.
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Clark was a surgeon rather than an ear-nose-throat guy, but I meant to be prepared for any eventuality. Our subject was Pat, a 30-year-old male who'd had earwax removed via conventional medical treatment some years earlier.

First we peered into Pat's ears with an otoscope, the familiar flashlight-type examining device. The poor guy had enough wax in there to make his own candles. We put him on the table, lit the candle, and stuck it in his ear in the prescribed manner. Then we watched, struggling to suppress the thought that we should also be chanting and maybe sacrificing small animals. MAO!

When the candle had burned down to two inches we snuffed it and examined the treated ear with the otoscope. No change, except that possibly the wax was dented where the candle had been stuck in. Upon slicing open the candle stub, however, we found a considerable quantity of brown wax and whitish powder. The manual had the audacity to intimate that the powder was candida yeast extracted from the ear, conceding that possibly "1% to 10%" was from the used candle. The disappointed MDs were more inclined to say it was 100 percent, but just to be sure we burned another candle in the open air. When we sliced it open we found wax and powder identical to that in the first. Conclusion: it's a hoax. Ain't it always the way? Maybe we're not doing enemas anymore, but we're winding up with the same old stuff. LOL

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posted January 12, 2005 05:09 AM         

'Wow' I said, my hearing having returned
to normal.