Ear Candles
Put a candle in your ear and light it? Sounds like an odd thing to do. But when the candle is a hollow cone of wax-covered linen, it's not just any candle, it's an ear candle. And many people swear it's the best way to remove excessive buildup of earwax.
In the HSI Healthier Talk community forums, a member named Code4hire started off an ear candling discussion with these questions: "Has anyone tried ear candling? If so, what sort of results did you get? Did anyone with tinnitus find that it helped their situation?"
JonB: "They are wonderful for cleaning out excess wax and for various ear problems, although I know of no-one who has used them for tinnitis. My wife used them after the ear nurse had cleaned out her ears, and she half filled the candle with wax and gunk. I have found that the 'HOPI' Ear candles by far the best to use."
Leppert: "We've been using them for several years and no they haven't cured my tinnitis. They can also pull fungus out. My hubby has had problems lately with one ear and we've candled it a few times. I buy candles about every 1 1/2 years or so and buy a lot of them. I buy only the beeswax ones and I think they only come out to about $3.50 or $3.75 a pair."
Jo UK: "I agree with leppert - using candles is a far safer method of removing wax. I don't know why they make claims about tinnitus - I have never found them to be helpful for that, or for ear infections either. But I do recommend them for removing wax."
Mary: "I wont say it has cured our ear infections, but I believe it has helped. What we have noticed, is there is a difference from the wax of the candle and the ear wax. The wax of the candle will be a white powder type substance. But if you do a little bit of investigative work, rummage around in the powder, and you will find little sometimes big globs of dark brown. This is the ear wax. We have discovered, that once we get the excess ear wax out, that treating the ear infection is easier."
Dee: "I have been using ear candles for 20 years they are great!!! And yes they do help the tinnitus some say. I use them on anybody that wants them used in their ears. I order them off the internet much cheaper and work great. Just go into google or any search engine and just type in ear candles there are several good places to get them from."
Michael: "Could the effects of ear candling be due to the placebo effect? Seems like I heard quite some time ago that studies showed that the candles were not very useful for removing wax. Most of the wax that was found was from the candles themselves."
Leppert: "Michael, once you have used candles for awhile you get to know and understand the signs. The first time I did my husband's it took six candles to finally get the wax out. We kept switching ears because the ear canal would get irritated. This last time it took two candles to just get the powder out before any wax came."
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