What Are Ear Candles?
- Wax in your ears can feel pretty annoying. It can feel like oozing slime traveling in and out of your ear canal, especially when you lie down on your bed and try to sleep. Ear wax serves its purpose, but what can you safely do to get rid of it when it's time? Q-tips are not recommended by doctors as putting anything in your ears risks damaging your ear drum. But there is one solution that some people turn to that requires no insertion of any objects, not even by physicians: ear candles. This article will explain how ear candles work to remove ear wax.
- Although ear wax can seem disgusting to many people, there is a reason why it exists in your ears. Ear wax actually helps keep debris from entering your ear drum and other small parts of your hearing system. If debris such as dust and allergens get to those parts, you can suffer from hearing impairment or hearing loss. Ear wax can even keep bugs out of the delicate parts by causing stickiness to their wings and legs. However, an accumulation of too much ear wax or hardened ear wax can completely block your ear canal, causing hearing loss.
- Ear candles are one way that people try to loosen problematic wax. The process is known as candling. The ear candles are shaped a lot like regular candles except they are hollow on the inside. They also have small plates at the base of the candles to protect against hot candle wax. The plates also collect whatever comes out of your ear. In candling, a person would lay on his side while another person (known as a candler) would place the plate on the person's head and the hollow end of the candle over the ear opening. When the candle is lit, supposedly the heat forms a vacuum that draws any extra wax and other debris out of the ear and onto the plate. This can take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes.
Ear candles, however, are not recommended by many physicians. They see candling as ineffective despite what candlers claim. Candlers have said that the ear candles remove other toxins and substances and will show them to you after the session is over. But some of those substances have also been found within the candle's materials. Other doctors have noted that not only is there no data that proves candling works, it can do more harm than good by adding the risk of burning your face or your ears. You would probably better off going to a doctor and having him remove ear wax via ear irrigation.
