Ear Coning/Candles

[nd_n8]

[QUOTE=Wallenstein]
Amen, brother.

Drives me nuts too… I notice this with herbal medicine in particular. Plenty of plants contain compounds that have an effect on human physiology.

But the Herbalists reject any such discussion 'cos it’s too redolant of “conventional pharma, and we’re more interested inna holistic approach, yeah?”, and the hardcore cynics snort and say it’s all mumbo-jumbo.

I’d love an approach that says "Yellow Snotwort contains smegacylic acid, which is known to disrupt mucus secretions… that why it’s traditionally been used to treat colds ".
[/QUOTE]

Thank you, that’s all I’m saying.

[Peter_Morris]

[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
What the hell are you talking about? I swear, you’re just being willfully ignorant at this point because no one could possibly miss what is glaringly obvious. But, just so we’re perfectly clear here, I will break it down for you thusly: 1) Ear candling proponents claim that ear candles remove cerumen deposits; forget the mechanism, it’s irrelevant. The claim is that they remove these deposits, full stop. 2) The linked study tested four subjects with severe wax buildup and four with normal amounts, using the candles per the directions. 3) No change was observed aside from an ash layer present in the tested ears of all eight subjects.

Conclusion: ear candles DO NOT REMOVE EAR WAX. The fact that the claimed mechanism was disproved at the same time has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the study. Do you understand this or do I need to use smaller words?
[/QUOTE]

Just a point, QED, but it’s worth making. On a brief look at ear candles for sale, it seems as if many of them, don’t actually make that claim at all. In fact they often explicitly deny doing that.

Examples …

https://www.shopholistic.co.uk/viewdoc_24.php
It is a common misconception that ear candles actually draw out ear wax from the ear using a chimney action. The residue in the candle after treatment is simply the wax from the candle and not ear wax! Ear wax is encouraged to disperse during and after ear candling but is NOT drawn out of the ear.

somethingforthewickend.co.uk
I am going to say this now in big letters so hopefully a few people will take note. EAR CANDLES DO NOT SUCK WAX OUT OF THE EARS! … There is no vacuum and not even a fraction of the power required to extract ear wax. … Ear candles act as a catalyst that affects the body’s system and enables us to relax and allows the eustacian, sinus and lymphs to open and drain.
http://www.hopi-earcandle.co.uk/how-do-ear-candles-work.aspx
Please note: Ear candles do not draw hard and compact ear wax up and into the ear candle … the residue that remains in the candle after treatment is actually beeswax and honey that has not burnt away completely.

… and so on.
I’m all for criticism of quack medicine. But if you aren’t accurate in your criticisms then you shoot yourself in the foot. Many proponents don’t actually claim that it pulls out earwax. Therefore providing proof that it doesn’t pull out earwax won’t impress them. Strawmen like this only serve to undermine your own position.

[Q.E.D]

[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Strawmen like this only serve to undermine your own position.
[/QUOTE]

But, it’s not a strawman. Most pro-candling sources do make precisely that claim.

[nd_n8]

[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
But, it’s not a strawman. Most pro-candling sources do make precisely that claim.
[/QUOTE]

Cite?

[Q.E.D]

[QUOTE=nd_n8]
Cite?
[/QUOTE]

How? You want me to post links to all the sites which make that claim? Screw that, I don’t have the time. Tell you what I will do, though: for every link you post to a pro-candling site which doesn’t make that claim, I’ll post a link to two which do.

[Peter_Morris]

I’ve given you three already. Please post your six.

And note that the three I posted were actually selling them. Can you give matching claims from other people selling them?

[Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical]

Despite the fine print, cone makers have made folks believe this is exactly what is happening. And I’ll bet you that before these were tested so publicly sellers did make that claim in writing.

[Q.E.D]

[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
I’ve given you three already. Please post your six.

And note that the three I posted were actually selling them. Can you give matching claims from other people selling them?
[/QUOTE]

http://www.coningcompany.com/faq.html

Ear coning is a safe, simple home remedy for gently removing excess wax and toxins from inside the ears and eustachian tubes.

http://www.relfe.com/ear_candles.html

Ear candles are used for ear wax removal.

Walgreens: Pharmacy, Health & Wellness, Photo & More for You

For centuries, people have used ear candles as a natural way to cleanse ear wax from the body.

http://www.naturallydirect.net/ear-candle.htm

Remove unwanted ear wax : Use natural ear candles for a gentle yet effective solution to remove built up ear wax.

http://www.springvalleyherbs.com/catalog.php?itemID=1433

As the warm smoke sinks through the interior of the candle, it creates a vacuum with the colder air outside of the candle. This vacuum then pulls the smoke back out of your ear canal, and because the smoke cools as it travels back up the ear candle, it deposits the wax it has been carrying on the interior of the ear candle!

http://www.vitacost.com/wallys.html

Ear candling with Wally’s Ear Candles is an alternative method of removing earwax, a process which can be traced back to the Hopi Indians.

http://www.wellness-shop.com/ear_candle.html

The OTOSAN cone for the ear care is the rediscovery of an ancient tradition for the treatment and prevention of the ear. Made of natural waxed cloth, it contributes to remove the wax-plug from the ear while re-balancing the ear pressure, and it prevents the unpleasant feeling of “blocked ears”.

That’s one extra for good measure. And yes, every one of those sites sells them.

[HMS_Irruncible]

Q.E.D., I’m sorry you finished that dirty task before I even started to pitch in, but thanks for taking it up.

This subtle change in ear candle marketing that is taking place, the shift away from hawking wax removal towards suggesting unquantified subjective benefits, is simliar to what’s happened in the metamorphosis of biblical literalism to creation science to intelligent design. As the various literal claims are shown as the hooey that they are, the proponents retreat into (temporarily) uncontested ground. It’s a sort of “god of the gaps” argument, except the ear candles are gently sucking money out of the gaps. But of course, not everyone has updated their arguments, so you still see some many of the fundamentalists cheerfully hawking these fake wax removers.

[Telemark]

ear-candles.net

It was long believed that ear candling actually “drew out”
earwax through suction, or a vacuuming effect. However,
we now know that very little if any of the residue left in
the unburned portion of the candle is actually ear wax.
Most of it is created by the burning of the candle itself. It
is just not possible for an ear candle to be powerful
enough to suck out ear wax. Candling can however,
soften and loosen impacted wax allowing the wax to find
its way out of the ear canal naturally.

Methinks that some of the places decided to acknowledge the irrefutable evidence and replace their claims with ones that are less easy to debunk.

[HMS_Irruncible]

[QUOTE=Telemark]

ear-candles.net

Methinks that some of the places decided to acknowledge the irrefutable evidence and replace their claims with ones that are less easy to debunk.
[/QUOTE]

Yep… and for a couple more examples, if the sampling works out, is to look at the Google ads at the bottom of this page. I’m looking at 2 out of 3 right now that have a summary of “ear wax removal candles” or some permutation thereof.

[Czarcasm]

Am I missing something? If the alternate claim is that the candling “loosens” the wax, wouldn’t the result be that it falls further into the ear?

[Q.E.D]

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Am I missing something? If the alternate claim is that the candling “loosens” the wax, wouldn’t the result be that it falls further into the ear?
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but then it just drains away down the Eustachian tubes. It’s not the New Math, it’s the New Physiology.

[Alex_Dubinsky]

[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Am I missing something? If the alternate claim is that the candling “loosens” the wax, wouldn’t the result be that it falls further into the ear?
[/QUOTE]
No, earwax constantly moves from inside the ear where it’s secreted, to the outside where it gets washed away. Earwax blockages occasionally occur whereby this movement halts, and loosening (such as with olive oil) would fix that. This has nothing to do with ear candles at all, just that you should go fn learn something.

[Alex_Dubinsky]

[QUOTE=Jackmannii]
What you want re ear candling is for the scientific community to say “well, it could be so, even with the ludicrous physiologic explanation provided and the clinical evidence showing it’s bunkum, so let’s hold off on any conclusions pending a huge clinical trial which would be a total waste of money and never convince the hardcore woo-ists, and meantime refrain from any negative comments”.
[/QUOTE]
You and Musicat are stating reality incorrectly. There is no study that tested ear candles’ therauputic value (just more specific claims). I’ve said this a million times, and you’ve never argued against it. You just go on saying things while totally ignoring that. You’ve painted yourself a world where you’ve gathered and twisted whatever shreds of evidence exist into some sort of certainty. That’s called bias.

Btw, I’ve never said ear candles are effective. I’ve only said you have no reason to say that, with high probability, they’re not. And this isn’t a “spaghetti monster” argument. It’s that there’s millions of people who feel that candles do good, and there isn’t any direct evidence to the contrary. Only indirect conjecture. Of course, for people like you, millions of people believing something is precisely reason to think it’s bs, right? Come on, you know i’ve got you there…

[Alex_Dubinsky]

On second thought, Czarcasm just came into this debate from nowhere and was just asking. I’m sorry I snapped. Please redirect that to qed.

[Czarcasm]

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
On second thought, Czarcasm just came into this debate from nowhere and was just asking. I’m sorry I snapped. Please redirect that to qed.
[/QUOTE]
Why don’t you try to remember what forum you are posting in and redirect this kind of posting to The BBQ Pit, o.k.?

[Jackmannii]

[QUOTE=Alex_Dubinsky]
There is no study that tested ear candles’ therauputic value (just more specific claims)…I’ve never said ear candles are effective. I’ve only said you have no reason to say that, with high probability, they’re not.
[/quote]
What is this “therapeutic value” of which you speak?

At this point you’re just reduced to relying on placebo effect, and without even any evidence to back that up. You apparently want us to disprove placebo effect.

It’s hopeless. You worship testimonials and folklore, critical thinking be damned.

While people mostly are not going to spend gobs of money and have much risk of serious harm by doing ear candling, the kind of attitude you and they hold does put them at significant risk when they apply it to other forms of “alternative” medicine.

I have no problem with adults seeking out what is essentially placebo therapy, no matter how ridiculous they appear. I do have a problem with quacks making money off such nonsense through false claims and with minors being victimized by ignorant parents.

Enjoy your ear candles.

[nd_n8]

Q.E.D., nice cites. Although I notice that only one out of 7 suggests the vacuum effect, the others just say it aids in ear wax removal. Again I present the unfounded, unresearchable but certainly not undefensable position that smoke (or one of it’s constituants) irritates the ear and causes fresh wax to be secreted. This would, IMHO, provide a mechanism not only to displace the old wax but to “lube up” the outer ear canal and facilitate the old and contaminated wax removal.

Could be any other of a dozen other things going on in there, until someone stops pointing at the witch doctors and laughing at the rubes then we will never know.

Irrigation is a quick and easy way to remove excess wax but does it stimulate the production of fresh clean wax? Is it safe and effective for people who may not be able to irrigate their ears?

(note, my son had surgery to correct a growth in his inner ear in Febuary. He still does not have a left ear drum and if water gets in there he has to have an antibiotic treatment, so no water can be used until after this fall when the doctors rebuild his inner ear and ear drum. His, mine and my father’s side of the family is notorious for excess ear wax buildup so I’m not defending the quacks for the hell of it, I actually have a vested interest in this. Although, unless he has a very serious blockage I will not use a candle in that ear and will take him to the doctor first, but I don’t anticipate such a buildup between now and his next surgery)

[QUOTE=Cosmic Relief]
(snip)This subtle change in ear candle marketing that is taking place, the shift away from hawking wax removal towards suggesting unquantified subjective benefits…(snip)
[/QUOTE]

I understand what you are saying but it still sounds like justification for unbased cynical rejection to me. It seems akin to saying “We have proven once and for all that there is no such thing as ‘Body Humors’ so it is rediculous to continue suggesting that chewing tree bark relieves pain. No body humors to treat thus treatment of them is disproven.”

The justification of rejection and the village of straw that can be constructed around it (fair enough, from both sides) will get us no where.

Something is happening in there during ear candling. It is blindingly obvious what is not happening, my question is what is happening? Doesn’t fighting ignorance, stupidity, malice, fraud, trickery, quackery, whatever, with truth rather than rejection and derision provide a much stronger weapon? Isn’t it better to find answers rather than lower ourselves to the level of the degenerate manipulators hawking these things on false claims?

[Telemark]

[QUOTE=nd_n8]
Something is happening in there during ear candling. It is blindingly obvious what is not happening, my question is what is happening?
[/QUOTE]

Why do you think that anything is happening? I haven’t seen any evidence aside from testimonials that ear candling does anything to the ear.