Ear Candling: now for everybody

absolute safety of the ear candling process

Toronto ear-nose-and-throat specialist Dr. Rick Fox first heard about ear candling when a patient arrived in his office in incredible pain. The candle had burnt right through his ear, leaving a chunk of wax lodged in it.

The patient "had suffered a significant burn throughout his canal and drum," says Fox. "He had perforated his tympanic membrane so we had to do a surgical repair and graft his drum."

Fox spent that Christmas day reconstructing the man's ear for a treatment that doesn't work.

"Many of the proponents," he says. "They cut open the candle and they show you this incredible amount of wax. What they don't show you is that if you don't put it into the ear, and you still light it on fire and you open it up, it looks the exact same."

"All the junk that's in the candle is simply the beeswax and the residue. It's not human ear wax."

Dr. Fox is not alone. One of the world's leading journals on ear, nose and throat ailments studied ear candling.

The authors of the study concluded:

"Physicians need to be aware of the dangers associated with ear candle use."

The study also found that ear candles don't and can never work in removing wax.

Health Canada also tested the candles. It too, found they don't work. In a letter to anyone selling the product, Health Canada wrote:

"Ear candles represent a potential health hazard to users. … There is no valid scientific data available to support any therapeutic benefits associated with the use of ear candles."

Why Candling Can't Work
Since wax is sticky, the negative pressure needed to pull wax from the canal would have to be so powerful that it would rupture the eardrum in the process. However, candling produces no vacuum. Researchers who measured the pressure during candling of ear models found that no negative pressure was created. The same investigators candled eight ears and found that no ear wax was removed and candle wax was actually deposited in some of them! [3]

The notion that the ear canal is connected to structures beyond the eardrum is false. A review of a good anatomy book should dispel this notion. The external ear canal, with an intact eardrum, is not connected to the brain, the sinuses targeted by the procedure (those above your eyes), or the Eustacean tubes (the passageways between the internal ear and the back of the throat). While some claim that the eardrum is porous and quickly allows impurities to pass through, this is untrue. The "impurities" that appear in the collected wax (usually on a paper plate or other collecting device) are nothing more than the ashes from the burnt wick and wax of the cone itself.

Dangers Reported
Candling poses several dangers, the most serious of which involve burning caused by the hot wax. Candle manufacturers claim that their candles will drip only down the outside of the ear, but shamefully few direct the user to hold the candle horizontally to prevent this. A 1996 survey of 144 ear, nose, and throat physicians, found that 14 had seen patients who had been harmed by ear candling, including at least 13 cases of external burns, 7 cases of ear canal obstruction with candle wax, and 1 perforated eardrum [3].

Another case was reported by The London Free Press, a Canadian newspaper. A woman who experienced stuffiness in the nose and ear pains while scuba diving went to a local health-food store and was referred to a "qualified" candler. During the "treatment," she felt an intense burning in her ear. At the emergency room, attempts to remove wax that had dripped from the candle onto her eardrum failed. Surgery was required, and a hole in her eardrum was discovered, which presumably was caused by the procedure. She recovered fully, and luckily her hearing was not affected. The practitioner apologized, compensated the woman, and stopped performing ear coning [4].