How to Clean Ear Wax Out of Your Ear With Candling
Ear candling is an old practice for removing material from the ear canal by creating enough heat to funnel air up through the hollow candle and creating a vacuum in the ear canal. Practitioners of candling claim a variety of health and spiritual benefits. The Food and Drug Administration and many doctors feel that the risks of candling outweigh any benefits, as experimental evidence shows that only candle wax, not ear wax, accumulates in the process.
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Things You'll Need
- Four ear candles
- Matches
- Two paper plates
- Scissors
- Rubber bands
- Two towels
- Large bowl
- Water
- Cotton swabs
Instructions
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Setting Up
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1
Go to a health food store or shop online to obtain a supply of ear candles. The cost can range from 50 cents to $10 each, and the quality of most are about the same. Locate most of the other items in your home. The bowl should hold at least a liter or 30 ounces of water. The paper plate should be thin enough to cut through with your scissors. The towels should be bath size, not hand towels. Thicker rubber bands work better than thin ones.
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2
Locate a place in your home that is well ventilated and where you are not too close to flammable items, such as drapes or lamp shades. You should be able to lie down comfortably on your side, and your assistant should be able to stand close enough to you to hold the ear candle upright while it burns. You should be able to easily move the burning candle to the bowl of water to douse it when it has burned long enough.
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3
Lay out at least four ear candles, four cotton swabs, the scissors, two paper plates, a book or box of matches or a lighter, and the two bath towels. Fill the bowl with water and place it near where the candling will take place. Cut a single small slit in the center of one plate about the width of the middle of a candle. Snip small slits radiating from the first slit so that you can insert the narrow end of the first candle through the top of the plate at its center snugly. Put the candle through the plate so that the plate is midway up the candle, the narrow tip poking out the bottom of the plate. Wrap a rubber band around the candle just below the plate to keep the plate from allowing wax to drip down through the plate's hole. Lie on your side and ask your assistant to place the two towels over your hair and shoulder leaving your ear exposed.
Lighting the Candle
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4
Follow this procedure for each ear. Your assistant should gently place the narrow tip of the candle in your ear and then light the top of the candle. As the candle burns down, your assistant may want to switch grips to below the paper plate.
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If you feel your ear getting too hot, or it starts to ring or hurt, remove the candle immediately and douse it in the bowl of water. Otherwise, wait until the candle has burned to about an inch above the plate before dousing it. To make sure that the plate does not catch fire before the candle is doused, pull the plate down and off before placing the candle in the water.
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6
Use a cotton swab to wipe up any soot or wax that may have dripped onto the ear. Give yourself a couple of minutes to sit upright before lying down on the other side to perform the same procedure on the other ear. You will need a new candle, a new plate, and another rubber band, and you should dispose of the old candle and replace the water in the bowl.
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Tips & Warnings
Ear candles can produce a fair amount of smoke, so be sure the smoke has somewhere to go.
The candle is supposed to create a vacuum to suck ear wax out of your ear canal. Thankfully, the seal between the candle tip and ear opening is usually not tight enough for a vacuum to occur, because any vacuum strong enough to remove ear wax would also rupture your eardrum.
Do not perform candling on yourself without someone else there. You won't be able to see when the candle has burned down close to the paper plate, and you might miss pieces of the candle that break off and miss the plate to start a fire.
The FDA and several independent doctors have agreed that ear candling provides no health benefits, and you risk burns, bleeding and hearing loss. At the very least, the wax from the candle may run down the inside of the candle and fill the ear with so much candle wax, a doctor may be required to extract it.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit ear close-up image by Dumitrescu Ciprian from Fotolia.com
