I overheard a co-worker talking about ear candling. Its a holistic way of removing ear wax deep inside your ear. I use Q-tips and clean my ears regularly just like anyone else. I was intrigued and she brought me two of these candles and they were nothing like I had imagined.
Its a funnel shaped cone made from cloth dipped in beeswax. One end sits upright in the ear canal while the other end is lit on fire. My girlfriend had the biggest smile on her face; fire near my head sounded fun I guess. We used a paper plate to protect against any ash falling.
She cut the burnt candle every couple of inches in order to keep an even flame. Surprisingly; I didn't really notice anything; in terms of melting wax in my ear and the suction from the flame inside the candle; pulling it out. I heard snap, crackle, pops through the candle - which sounded far away but that's about it. Honestly; I didn't think it was doing anything.
I have to throw out the disclaimer that a lot of websites say this is dangerous. It could lead to melted wax going into your ear; canal blockage; ear drum puncture. Non of those things happened to me.
I actually damaged my ear drum on the right side when I was a kid. I still remember doing it. Got off of an airplane and plugged my nose and pushed hard. Both my ears popped; I heard a loud squeal in the right ear followed by sharp pain. I must have been 9 or 10 years old. To this day; I don't notice anything unless the volume gets above a certain decibel at a concert or something and then it sounds like a broken speaker on my right side; lots of distortion and crackles. I also get really high pitched squealing and pain when I dive more than 8 feet in a pool. Anyway... just to be clear; I got this injury a long time ago and non of it was caused by candling. If anything it made me curious to see if there would be any difference in the right ear than the left.
When the candle had 3-4" left; she extinguished the fire. Cut the base open with scissors and this is what I see. I cleaned my ear with Q-tips just prior to doing this. So yes... it works. It extracted all of that wax out of my inner ear that is unreachable.
The only thing I have really noticed that is different is my hearing. I have to turn down the TV from its normal volume about 5-10 steps due to it being too loud. So I think my hearing has improved a lot since this experiment.
If you research ear candling; it clearly states that there isn't much evidence proving it works. I am telling you that I was very skeptical but I think it did work for me and didn't feel it was dangerous as long as another person is maintaining the candle.
Credits: Wikihow; rawforbeauty.com; bing search engine; video: Todayifoundout.com