All this COVID-19 coverage gives me the jitters. For the sake of sanity, can we talk about
something else? Say, ear candles to
remove ear wax? Yea! But hold onto your horses. For those folks who swear by these devices
and the process called “ear candling” or “ear coning,” here’s the BUMMER ALERT:
they don’t work.
I see a lot of patients who claim ear candles remove the wax from
their ears (and ironically, they’re seeing me for ear problems). The process involves placing a hollow candle
onto or into the entrance of the ear canal and lighting the other end. The theory is the heat melts the ear wax
(known as cerumen, not to be confused with the wax from the candle,
which is paraffin) and the hollow candle creates a vortex or vacuum that
sucks the cerumen out. As proof to its
efficacy, users claim the brown substance that collects inside the hollow of
the candle is the actual cerumen removed from the ear.
This conceptually sounds fine-and-dandy and semi-rational if it
weren’t for those annoying contradictory nuisances called scientific studies. These studies have found: 1. NO vacuum is created by the candles, 2. NO cerumen is removed when the ear is
examined before and after the candling, and 3.
that brown stuff inside the candle has none of the properties of
cerumen, but instead has shown to be the burnt paraffin from the candle itself.
Also there are numerous reports of injury related to this
procedure. In fact, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) warns against their use, stating:
“The product labeling is false and misleading
in that there is no validated scientific evidence to support the efficacy of
the product for its intended use” and considers “the product to be dangerous
when used according to its labeling, since the use of a lit candle in the
proximity of a person's face would carry a high risk of causing potentially
severe skin/hair burns and middle ear damage.”
We in the medical profession phrase
such things as “the risks far outweigh any potential benefit.” In the case of ear candles, there is no
proven benefit but proven risks and complications.
If you must clean our ear, there
are safer ways (see Ear
Cleaning, Do’s and Don’ts). See
your doctor who also can clean this out and for really stubborn cases, a visit
to the ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat) doctor may be required.
So do us all a favor—your doctor,
the emergency room doctors and staff, and the poor ENT doc on-call-- avoid ear
candles!
Randall S. Fong, M.D.
For more
topics on medicine, health and the weirdness of life in general, check out the
rest of the blog site at randallfong.blogspot.com
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