Talk:Ear candling

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My anecdotal experience:I remember when I was younger I had what I thought was water in my ear and it wouldnt come out, it made hearing in that ear difficult and it was just plain bothering me. I told my grandmother about it and she I guess she did this to me and it went away. Albeit she didnt actually use a candle much less some expensive candle specifically for this, she just got a regular lined sheet of paper coned it up and stuck it in my ear while I was laying down and burned the edge of it. O.F.Fascist 09:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is probably too opinionated for the actual article (despite those links, perhaps); The "hot air" theory seems like it would only work if air was able to be drawn out from the ear, requiring an unimpeded path through the head for air to come in by.

That path is called the Eustachian tube, and connects with the sinus [1]. The real question is whether or not ear candles create enough suction to do what they claim (and if they did, whether or not that would be good for the ears). I don't think any knowledgable person would doubt that sufficient suction would draw out wax from the ears. Of course technically nothing is being sucked or pulled, it's meerly a lack of pressure pushing in. And the human body has plenty of pressure pushing out that a lot more than ear wax would pop out if the normal atmospheric pressure were completely removed. --Blackcats 08:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That is nonsense! I expect you think the human body would explode in the vacuum of space. It wouldn't. You've seen too many bad science fiction films. -unsigned comment by User:62.6.139.10

The comic imagery associated with that should be clear enough. Zake 04:36, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There's absolutetly nothing that supports the rubbish that is ear candling. If it makes you feel better, it's probably the heat. Ever stick your ear on a heating pad, especially if you have an ear infection? Feels a lot better. It simply does not work. As for "hot air", you'd probably already have a lot of it in your head if you actually think ear candling is a viable way to get gunk out of your ear (well, besides being simply misinformed by some fast-talking huckster). - Lord Kenneth 04:51, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Deleted links 2 Photograph Caption? 3 Another deleted link? 4 Source please 5 NO PROOF! 6 Tone 7 Sceptic, gullable or a solution ? 8 heating earwax

[edit] Deleted links

I removed a couple of external links to an ear-candling supply store. Wikipedia is not a link farm, and connections to retail establishments are frowned on. - DavidWBrooks 13:29, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Since many people do in fact believe in this, for what it's worth, there should be some links that explain the proponent's point of view. To have six critical links and no positive ones is severely POV. Dforest 01:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you find those links and add them? I mean, I think this is an NPOV article... Ear candling is a dangerous scam, Health Canada doesn't have any interest in discrediting legitimate alternative medicine. Themindset 03:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, mainly because I'm personally not a proponent of ear candling. But that doesn't change my opinion that to show six critical links without several neutral or positive ones is a serious POV problem, which someone should solve. There should be more specific talk of the claimed benefits – without resorting to weasel words – and ideally someone should research the history of this thing. A lot of the proponent sites say this has Hopi origins. Dforest 04:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Hopi origins? Interesting: That's a new one to me. Can you point to a cite, so we can incorporate it in the article? - DavidWBrooks 12:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Honestly Dforest, don't simply stick on a Neutrality tag and then not do something. Be bold and do something about, do the things you are suggesting and avoid sticking on the neutrality tag. My roomate got seriously injured using these things, and if this article helps even one person avoid the very real dangers of ear-candling, GREAT. No matter what you do or say, you can't go against physics: if there was enough suction to pull out ear wax, it would be doing incredible damage to the subject. But, in fact, the only danger is wax (the wax from the candle) leaking back into your ear. Themindset 02:43, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

If you look in the history, I did do some considerable work toward making it NPOV. I absolutely agree, the warnings should be in there. But before my edits it wasn't even listed in the alternative medicine category, only as pseudoscience. There were but two full sentences describing it–in a rather biased way–and the rest was basically criticism. I personally seriously doubt the effectiveness of this, but I note that Straight Dope, for example, based its experiment on only one candle, while sites I looked at said 2-3 candles are usually necessary the first time. [2] It may well be purely placebo, but someone has to play devil's advocate in these situations. Remember, this is an encyclopedia, and not a medical guide. There should be a more thorough explanation of the practice and its history and ethnography. BTW, I'm very sorry about your roommate. Dforest 05:34, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Also note that many 'conventional' meds, like Viagra, have serious dangers, (see [3]) but they must be explained in the article in a neutral way. Dforest 06:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

DavidWBrooks, I've googled for more info about the history on this, and I find a lot of sites connecting it with Hopi, but, alas, most of it is vague marketing drivel... [4] I would look into some books of Hopi ethnography, but I'm living in Japan right now, and its very hard to find such things here. Dforest 05:34, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Vague marketing drivel, alas, is what constitutes most evidence in this field, usually wrapped in pompous new age gobbledygook and misused medical terminology. Which explains a lot of the extreme skepticism- DavidWBrooks 10:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No doubt, there are a lot of dubious alternative medicine practices out there. You always have to separate the wheat from the chaff. But many of them are interesting whether or not they they are physiologically effective, particularly if they have ethnological history behind them. By the way, have you heard of the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices? [5] It's a place I've been meaning to visit for some time. Dforest 13:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photograph Caption?

While the caption on the photograph may be technically correct, should it be pointed out that the doctor was candling the patient as part of an experiement to see if ear candling does anything? And that the experiment failed, in the sense that no good was done?

He didn't exactly say "no good was done", in fact he wrote "On the positive side, I've seen middle ear infections respond very quickly to ear candling." However he also demonstrated it to be ineffective for removing earwax, and suggested the safety risks may outweigh the benefits. There is already a link in the caption to the article describing his experiments. I believe that is sufficient. --Dforest 05:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

This is a close one, but I agree with the anonymous comment above - the casual reader will, I think, see the photo and caption as "gee, a real doctor uses ear candling!" (actually - what the heck is an "N.D."?) Forcing them to follow an external link to get the context seems excessive. How about something like "James Mally, N.D. ear candling a patient, as part of experiments that led him to suggest that safety risks outweigh any possible benefits." - DavidWBrooks 15:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

ND seems to mean Doctor of Naturopathic medicine. I made a change to the caption along the lines you suggested without having read these comments. I strongly agree it was misleading otherwise. Incidentally, I wonder what your objection was to the link to the satire of ear candling, "butt candles"? It was an anology that made a valid point, i.e. that you would not expect to cure constipation by sticking a burning candle into your rectum to suck out the obstruction. Flapdragon 23:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia has enough trouble debating which straightforward external links to use ... if we started adding satire pages - hoo boy! Imagine what links they would put on political pages!! - DavidWBrooks 01:19, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It's not a matter of "if we started adding satire pages" -- they're there already, and why on earth not! Have you seen the articles on Westboro Baptist Church or Google, for example? What makes a link to site that uses satire to oppose something less "straightforward" than one to any other kind of site, or in any way objectionable as long as it sheds light on the subject? I'm not aware of any WP rule against it. Of course, "they" can put whatever links they like on political pages, and if they're deemed unsuitable for some good reason they'll simply be removed. But there would need to be some kind of reasonable objection, and I'm still hoping for an explanation of the nature of your objection to this one (bearing in mind also NPOV). Flapdragon 02:45, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It was juvenile, uninteresting and added nothing to the debate, IMHO. Calling it "satire" is a stretch; "frat joke" would be a better category. -DavidWBrooks 13:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

You might not like it, you might think it was juvenile (though it didn't seem so to me), but there's no denying it's satire. I think I've explained the point it's making, if that was necessary, and it's a long way from "a frat joke". The idea that ear wax could be removed by suction without massive tissue damage, and using just a candle, is absurd, and I think neatly satirised by the analogy of hearing one's intestines gurgling as the blockage is freed. Of course, if you don't like your satire scatalogical you're up against a pretty mighty tradition (Rabelais, Swift et al), but more to the point (as you know) WP is not in the business of censoring things some people might find tasteless. The description of the link makes it quite clear what kind of page it leads to, so no-one would be offended by stumbling on it. I'm reinstating the link on the grounds that it makes a good point not made elsewhere. Best wishes, Flapdragon 02:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Citing Rabelais ... oh dear, that's awfully close to the cranks who argue "they also censored Gallileo!" But since edit wars over external links are wikipedia at its most navel-gazing, I'll leave the link in and we'll have to agree to disagree. (Although I see that somebody else has removed it) - DavidWBrooks 11:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another deleted link?

Description of ear candling by alternative therapists (remove commercial external link)

I don't understand. In what sense is this a "commercial link" in any sense that makes it objectionable? It's just a page describing what happens at an ear-candling session, it's not trying to sell you one. It's not even run by people who have any commercial interest in ear-candling, it's on the "Colon therapists network" website. Flapdragon 11:23, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

A color ad for a therapist finder plus eight (eight!) Google ads and a popup for a "newsletter" - more ads than text, almost. It's like linking a mainstream health article to a private supply store selling medical supplies because it desribes an ailment, rather than to the CDC page about the ailment. That's why the particularly idiotic (IMHO) link by a believer about how candling "worked" for him is still there; it's not used as an excuse to wallpaper ads.

But I'll admit that, once again, this is a judgement call, not an absolute. - DavidWBrooks 15:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

What have the Google ads got to do with anything? Since when do we avoid linking to pages with adverts on? If it were linkspam I'd agree with you of course, i.e. a link that sheds no real light on the article and is purely using the article to direct to traffic to a commercial service, but that's not the case here. I'm sorry, but I just don't understand where you're coming from with this. Is there any actual WP policy you're referring to? I don't care passionately about that particular page, it probably didn't contain anything irreplaceable, but if you're going to go through Wikipedia deleting links to pages with any kind of commercial purpose -- well, that rules out most of the Web, doesn't it? Flapdragon 21:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't particularly care about it, either, and it was a close call, but it included (IIRC) nothing that wasn't mentioned in the story - which is the whole point of an external link, of course - and had a high ad-to-content ratio. In general, I think we should err on the side of caution with external links, so that readers seeing a link have some confidence that it will be worth the effort of leaving wikipedia: the site will tell them something new or give a new perspective, and won't require too much ad-wading-through-ness and/or registration. So many wiki articles are becoming external-link-laden. - DavidWBrooks 00:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You may be right that it didn't add much, and that's a perfectly fine rason for deleting it. I just wondered (and still wonder) where this horror of adverts comes in. (There was no regiustration involved incidentally, just a floating ad that went away with a simple click. Apart from that, no "wading" at all.) External links are a valuable part of what WP does, IMHO, and there's no need to think of them as inherently superfluous or a necessary evil. In some articles they're becoming an endangered species. Flapdragon 14:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You are correct (boy, this is a polite argument!) that I over-stated the evils of this link's ad side, and that the existence of advertising is not a reason to squash a link. I realize that my real problem with it is that it added nothing much, if anything, to the article; it was a bland retelling of the information the article contained, and two minutes on Google finds several equivalent summaries. (Yet if it had been ad-free, I probably would have shrugged and left it alone out of inertia, so I'm not being consistent.) Also, I may be over-reacting to articles like podcasting and geocaching, where external links have at times swamped everything. Some articles are in danger of becoming Web portals to the topic at hand. - DavidWBrooks 14:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with DavidWBrooks here. Links to pages with pop-over ads that wiggle around (!) had better add considerable information to the article if we are to link to them. That link had more ads than content. Dforest 15:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, I think we all agree now(!) Flapdragon 17:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Source please

Despite it's vociferous detractors, ear candling continues to grow in use and popularity. Undertaken with care, one may expect an overall pleasing experience.

I've removed this claim pending some evidence to substatiate it. Flapdragon 15:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NO PROOF!

I was the user that submitted my personal account of ear candling in JPEG form. I personally FELT like it worked... but when I tried it again two weeks later, I burned one that was stuck into the ground by about 1cm and it had the same, if not MORE "toxins" and "wax". All it merely must be is cotton granuals and melted bees wax, not human ear wax. Altonbr 04:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

You're right - Biosun, who make one brand of candles that holistic therapy insurance companies will cover, have confirmed that the residue in the candles after use is not anything from the ear. It is a bit of beeswax and ash from the cotton burning. This is common sense, because some candles have filters, and the residue is on the wrong side of the filter for it to have come from the body. If a practitioner used candles with filters and tried to tell a client that the wax was from their ears, all it would take was one question: "why is there no wax on the other side of the filter?" The practitioner would be stumped, and also would look silly! Lottiotta

I will try to find a reference for the paragraph already explaining that in the article. --Lottiotta 17:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

An insurance company covers ear candles??? That's quite interesting and should be in the story; can you provide a link to evidence? (But what is a "holistic therapy insurance company" anyway? Sounds like ... well, like hokum, frankly, but maybe I'm being too quick on the snide draw. - DavidWBrooks 18:21, 12 January 2007 (UTC))

Sure, I'll write to Biosun and ask them to give me a reference or send me the information about the study that says it doesn't "suck out" the ear wax. Presumably I can't add it in here unless it's published, but I'm sure it is. And because I'm a "believer", I'll definitely be finding some information to rebalance the bias! :) The insurance company (well, one of several) here in the UK is the TIS, Therapy Insurance Service. I'll try and add some of their policies and cite them, in the article. Lottiotta 14:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've emailed Biosun, and I'll edit once I hear back from them. :) Lottie 17:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Still no word... Lottie 16:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tone

This article has a very skeptical tone, which is fine, but the main source of the skepticism comes from quackwatch.com, as if that's the end-all-be-all. With homeopathic remedies, the "proof" is always going to be more anecdotal and less clinical. That doesn't necessarily mean that the practice ineffective. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.241.229.188 (talk • contribs).

Actually, one of the main sources of skepticism is the Canadian Ministry of Health, pretty reputable. Themindset 17:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is very biased against ear-candling. While reading this, you'd get the impression that the only proponents of this technique are scammers and morons. There are many proven evidential and empirical scientific studies of Ear-candling that have proven that it may have some effect but of course, knowing the bunch of cynics on this page they will be reverted to maintain the ridiculously-biased super skepitcal tone existing on this page. Smith Jones 16:56, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Scammers and morons, perhaps, but mostly the naive and those who confuse wishful thinking with reality. There is, as the article makes clear with well-sourced references, no evidence - none, zero, nada - that it does anything but enrich candle-sellers, burn the occasional ear, and produce a bit of placebo effect now and then. Presenting that information isn't being "biased against" the topic; its being factual. - DavidWBrooks 18:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sceptic, gullable or a solution ?

I don't know. I've done it a number of times, because I have problems with my left ear getting plugged up. Every time I've done it there's been significantly more "wax" in the candle I used on my left ear. Also, If you did it again a couple weeks later, it makes sense that there wouldn't have been much more wax in the candle you used in your ear vs. the test candle in the ground, because there wouldn't have been very much wax build up in your ear after only a few weeks. (user's view moved by Lottie 18:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC))

I've read a lot of information on Ear Candling, and about its purported benefits, as well as its controversy, but for some reason it appeared to cure a problem I had.

For some months a few years back, I had been suffering from impared hearing, consisting of occasional distortion of higher frequencies (like a speaker that's been turned up too loud), and a rhythmic popping sound at other times. I had been to the doctor, who referred me to a hearing consultant that I visited several times. I had a number of hearing tests and even an MRI on my head (just to cover all bases). But in the end he was at a loss as to the cause. I suggested it was congestion based (perhaps a blocked eustacian tube?), but no decongestant treatment seemed to have any effect.

I eventually heard of "Ear Candles" and went to a local Holistic Therapist. Immediately after the treatment, there was slight improvement, but then over the next 24 hours my sinuses appeared to be draining, with a couple of significant expulsions of mucus into the top of my throat from the passages behind my nose. The symptoms cleared completely, and my hearing was restored. I have no other explanation to attribute to the sudden "cure" except for using the Candles.

I just used the candles again this last weekend, as I have been starting to occasionally get the same distortion I used to have. And again it appears to have "cured" it. Regardless of common sense prevailing over "quackery", and my scepticism on what the candle contains after use, I would be interested in understanding what actually happened to restore my hearing if it wasn't the Candles themselves.

Andy

Coincidence? It happens, even if it's an unsatisfying explanation. That's why long, expensive, complicated experiments have to be set up, to weed out seeming explanations that really aren't. - DavidWBrooks 19:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] heating earwax

As for the part of the artical that states: "Nor could the candle create a sufficiently high temperature to "melt" the earwax as is sometimes claimed." After using an ear candle I lifted my head up and a large amount of liquid earwax dripped out. Is this another coincidence?

Liquid earwax? I'm a practitioner of ear candling and I've never known this to happen.

Sometimes you get some small lumps of hardened wax in the candle, or if there's no filter it may fall into the ear. When this happens, take a small amount and crush it slightly with your fingernail and smell it. It is a brownish colour, as earwax would be - but what does it smell like? I think earwax smells kind of bitter and sour, but it's definitely not a nice smell. If it smells kind of like the candle, then it's melted beeswax. You might know what beeswax smells like anyway, quite strong and slightly sweet. If it's fluffy and leaves a black mark when you rub it, it's ash. Lottie 16:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Ear-candling is for arel and sohould be treated as such by this ARTICLE so i recommend that any critical passages should be moeved to a special section called 'Ear candling criticisms'. if you DON'T want me to do this then tell me... NOW!

What? You're okay with it? Then I will move it. Pleas efreel free to revert it is if i am causing the offense okSmith Jones 04:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I think that's fair - it seems ridiculous to scatter the opposing points through the article, I think your edit would benefit it and generally make it less biased. :) What's "arel"? Lottie 17:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

For information on any medical effects of ear candling, Wikipedia's rules require that we present mainstream science findings as the majority view. Such information does not belong somewhere at the bottom of the article. See e.g. WP:NPOV, Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Pseudoscience, WP:Undue Weight. AvB ÷ talk 18:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I DID present it as the majority view it doesnt matterwhere in the articl the viewpoiunt is the scientiffic viewpoint was represented adeuqlately in my opiunon. Smith Jones 23:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)