Botanica WestHolistic Healing & Therapy from a Master Herbalist

Ear candling is ancient remedy they has been around for centuries.

In the Greek, Chinese, Native American, Mayan and Egyptian cultures ear candling devices were found that were made of clay tubes or cones, reeds and even corn stalks.

I remember one my great grandmother had made of news paper or a brown paper bag rubbed with a wax candle on one side and vaporub on the other.

There are more modern versions as shown in the photos that are used now. Ear candling has become a popular modality of healing but people don’t really know the benefits of ear candling.

Despite the claims that it removes earwax, the residues in the candle are not ear wax but the ash from the candle itself.

In fact, over candling the ear can irritate the ear canal and make wax accumulate more.

I worked in a doctor’s office and a patient had irritated her ear so badly from over candling that she need a round of cortisone for swelling of the ear canal and antibiotics for infection from the chronic inflammation of the ear.

On top of that the doctor pulled a huge chunk of candle wax and ash from her ear that blocked her hearing for weeks.

Ear candling should really be done by a practitioner or you should educate yourself on the proper use of ear candling.

First, never candle an inflamed ear or and ear canal oozing fluid pus or blood.  See a natural doctor or your herbalist/holistic practitioner immediately.

Second, understand that ear candling is not for removal of ear wax! If you have excess ear wax it is usually an internal problem such as allergies to dairy, plants, animals, or bacterial infection or ear mites.

Yes, ear mites.

If you have pets and they have itchy ears and you feel the need to have them sleep with you as you own personal live wooby–you are going to get ear mites.

Third, after the above statement about pets, please note that under no circumstances should you candle your pets ears. Especially cats. They really don’t like it, it freaks them out. (Not that I ever tried it!)

Fourth, although ear candling  is a calm relaxing experience when done properly,  it is by no means a religious or spiritual one as some claim.

So far, not one patient has yet to levitate from my massage table so far…but there is always tomorrow.

What actually happens during ear candling is that the nice warm smoke goes down the ear and it is supposed to smother the mold, bacteria and other little unwanted critters or flora to death.

It is kinda like burning the bedding and personal belonging after it was exposed to the plague.

If there is water or moisture in the ear canal it causes the ash forming in the candle to get heavy and accumulate in the ear candle. It may even have an odor.

If yo see a big drippy chunk of ear wax it is not your personal ear wax–believe me. If it was yours, you would be mostly deaf.

The ear canal may appear dry and chalky which is normal for a nice dry unshowered or unsaturated ear canal.

Opening an ear candle and reading it like a tea leaf is not a practice that I am familiar with but I’ve heard of those that do.

But many ask me to do it and I have no problem cracking it open, it tells me only that the ear is wet inside.

However, I have found dead bugs in ear candles about three times in all of my experience of ear candling.

But in those cases that was the reason the person came in for ear candling to get a spider or bug out of the ear.

And it really works by the way.

If you wish to make an appointment for an ear candling session call 909-796-6600

Helene Gentili, CRMT, Curandera