Re: What's the deal? Safe?

Hi, I'm a therapist who uses ear candling in my clinic in England. I combine it with a Shiatsu facial massage and aromatherapy cream to make a very relaxing treatment of 1 hour. I have found candles to be safe and have used them for children as young as 5 (although presence of grommets is a contraindication). With regard to the wax found in the candle, the simplest way to test your suspicions is to burn one down without putting it in anyone's ear and see what is left inside at the end. A friend of mine on the same ear candling course as me did this and found no difference in contents, i.e. most of the content of the candle will be the result of the composition of the candle. This is because the ear candle works not by drawing out the ear wax (imagine - you could not even do this easily with a purpose built vacuum cleaner and probably just as well!) but by warming the ear wax which may be compressed and hardened and actually stimulating production of new wax initially. This "gets things moving" and allows a kind of rebalancing effect over the subsequent 48 hours. The immediate relief that can be felt is due to the very slight alteration of pressure around the ear drum. Hope this helps. Tweet