Cat Collar Trackers

[Janepie33]

Has anyone done this?

DD has air/ fluid in her ear after a bout of tonsillitis, causing her discomfort. I bought a set of ear candles from the health food shop and followed the instructions. DD lay on her side as I held the candle and her boyfriend laughed and took photos.

Sadly the candle seems to have no effect what so ever! DD was very sceptical but willing to try anything that would make her feel more comfortable. She is just finishing off her antibiotics and she is off to uni tomorrow, so I'd rather send her off fit and well.

Maybe I did it wrong.

 

Any advice from experienced ear candlers gratefully received!

[Calamity Jane]

I have had this done, and it was really comforting. A friend of mine is trained in this and lots of other alternative therapies. I had had blocked sinuses (not infected) and I felt it sort of making my ears POP !! Perhaps you did something wrong - I always think its best to let the pros do this sort of thing. But then again these things don't work for everyone - hope she finds relief.

[majorbloodnock]

Sorry for being a bit of a party pooper, especially given Calamity Jane has found some benefit, but there is absolutely no evidence to back up the suggestion that ear candling works. Several studies have been carried out and not one has found any evidence that those subjected to ear candling fared better or worse than those who weren't.

 

Wikipedia has an interesting article on it, in which it even points out that the Hopi Indians have had quite a difficult time trying to correct the world at large and convince people that ear candling is not, in fact, one of their traditions. Nonetheless, the marketing machine trundles on regardless, selling these things as "Hopi candles".

[Janepie33]

Oh well. It was worth a try and nothing else worked! Good job I didn't set fire to her hair.

[Cinnamon]

I had it done once & I liked it,

When the therapist unrolled the candle,it had all the nasty ear gunk in it...ewwwwww

And it did seem to unblock me too,as well as just being a nice,relaxing therapy.

[welovemarmite]

I have had it done and at the time it seemed to work and we go tlots of rubbish out my ears. However, I then ended up with a serious ear infection in both ears a couple of weeks later.

[missuscluck]

oooh dear, thats not good

 

I have had it done some years ago as a friend of mine was training in reflexology and the like and used me as a guniea pig. I didnt really like it and to be honest didnt get any benefit from it.

[..lay a little egg for me]

I had it done once & I liked it,

When the therapist unrolled the candle,it had all the nasty ear gunk in it...ewwwwww

And it did seem to unblock me too,as well as just being a nice,relaxing therapy.

 

Interestingly, if you burn the candle while it is just sitting on a table, you still get what looks like ear gunk in it when it is unrolled, and if you investigate the "gunk" you will find it smells just like candle wax....hmmmm.

[Cinnamon]

Well, IMHO,as someone who has actually had it done,it works.

And the while candle itself was white,the gunk was dark brown,which seems genuine enough to me.

[..lay a little egg for me]

This is a summary of a study on ear candling, that explains how the candle itself produces the brown wax, sorry...

 

A small study of the properties of ear candles

WB Jeffries, J Tobias, M Aquilina, J Knath and T Sullivan

During the course of investigating ear candling we often encountered the belief that ear candles create a vacuum that draws fluids and wax from the ear canal, which in turn produces beneficial health effects. To investigate this notion, we obtained several ear candles from a local health food store and investigated their properties. Click pictures to enlarge.

 

Description: The candles were lightweight hollow tubes tapered at one end. The candles were 25 cm in length and 1.5 cm wide at the non tapered end. The tapered ends had a 1-2 mm opening. The candles appeared to be made of wrapped gauzed that had been treated with paraffin. Each candle cost approximately $1.00, although more expensive candles could be obtained.

 

The protocol: A volunteer was procured from the alternative medicine rotation. He denied any sinus infections or ear disease. The candle was inserted into the subject's ear canal, ensuring a tight seal so that the communication from the ear to the external environment was through the candle. The subject's head rested on a rolled cushion. The candle was lit with a match and allowed to burn until approximately 7 cm in length. At this point the candle was removed and placed in a beaker of water to douse the flame. The ash was then trimmed from the cooled candle which was then cut lengthwise to examine the contents. As a control, we also simultaneously burned a candle that was placed in a clean, dry Erhlenmeyer flask. This candle was also extinguished and cut as described.

 

Results. Each candle burned vigously for about 5 minutes. In the control candle, white smoke poured from the small hole in the taper for about 1 minute. The photo on the right shows this (this was not the control candle, but another used to demonstrate the phenomenon). In the control candle, the white smoke deposited a waxy film on the bottom of the beaker. The subject did not report any such residue in his ear. The subject did not note discomfort during the procedure. The control candle and the subject's candle burned at approximately the same rate.

 

Upon completion of the treatment, the interior of the tapered end of the treatment candle contained a considerable amount of a yellow-brown waxy substance, that quite remarkably resembled ear wax. However, upon examination of the control candle revealed that it too contained a similar amount of the waxy substance. We next trimmed the candles to identical lengths (5 cm) and compared their mass on a pan balance. Each used candle taper weighed 1.76 gm. The experimental subject reported no subjective changes in well-being immediately after treatment or one hour later.

 

Conclusions.

 

1. The ear candle, when burned, produced a brown waxy substance that looks like ear wax. However, since the wax appears whether or not the candle is placed in a human ear, we conclude that the source of the wax is the candle and not the ear.

2. It is possible that the candle produced wax but also extracted solid material from the ear the was mixed with the candle wax. However, since the candle remnant of the control candle and the one inserted into a human volunteer weighed exactly the same, we conclude that this did not happen.

3. The human subject reported no feeling of a vacuum which is purported to occur during the burning of the candle. The control candle produced smoke that poured from the bottom of the tapered end, suggesting that positive, not negative pressure was being produced.

4. The subject reported no subjective feelings invoked by the treatment, suggesting that the ear candle was innefective in a controlled environment.

[Cinnamon]

Interesting,but still,I have had the treatment & I think that for my condition,it helped

[Calamity Jane]

I agree with Cinnamon, I have had the treatment and thought it helped my condition. At the end of the day I dont need to see facts and figures on whether something can be proved to be beneficial - if it works for me that is good enough.

[Margalot]

Has anyone done this?

DD has air/ fluid in her ear after a bout of tonsillitis' date=' causing her discomfort.[/quote']"Janepie33"]Has anyone done this?

 

 

I think you may find that the fluid is actually on the inner side of the ear drum ,the eustacion tube which links the middle ear to the throat. Whether ear candling works or not you cannot remove this fluid via the ear, and just have to wait until the antibiotics kick in and it clears itself via the throat, hope she feels better soon

[The Dogmother]

I tried it once - prone to ear problems after a burst eardrum and subsequent infection as a result of being passenger in a car crash - didn't work for me, but I found a lot of relief from steam inhaling with some menthol & eucalyptus in the water.

 

I hope that she feels better soon.