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Saturday, May 9, 2009

Is Ear Candling Safe?

Is ear candling safe? Being into complementary and alternative medicine, I decided to try ear candling. It felt odd and was fun in a strange "let's-do-something-different" kind of way, but I really wondered if all the crap left in the candle could possibly have come out of my ear. Reputable sources claimed great concern over this procedure and warned against doing it. On the other hand, folks working at the local health store said it helped them greatly over the years.
So I decided to run an experiment to uncover the truth regarding this practice. The nice clean glass below served as the inside of a nice clean ear.



Next I placed the ear candle over the cup and lit it--just as you would do over your own ear if you were so inclined to use ear candles. The first thing I noticed was a large amount of sooty smoke filling the glass (our ear for this experiment). When it was done here's how the glass looked (remember this is what could be left inside your ear canal.




To give you a better picture, here's a clean spoon.





Now here's the same spoon after scooping out the gunk from the bottom of the glass (this is the junk left in your ear after candling).



Additionally, ear candling proponents claim that the inside of the candle will suck up the wax from your ear thus cleaning it out. To "prove" this, you can cut the candle open and see all the supposed ear wax. Below is a photo of the ear wax that was sucked up.



Of course, the only problem with this is that wasn't even over an ear!! But rather a completely clean glass!
So take my advise and stay away from this detrimental hoax.

In good health,

Kris
http://www.totalhealthyoga.com/

Today is the first day of the rest of your life!

2 comments:

Julia said...

Wow what a clever way to test this out! Thanks for sharing your results.

Brünhilde Wunderfrau said...

Great scientific method! ;) I was always freaked out at the prospect of lighting my hair on fire or something. Not cool...