Anyone ever try ear candling?

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16. Dave Barry did!

I'm All Fired Up Over A Cure For Ear Wax

By Dave Barry

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

TODAY I want to tell you about an Amazing Home Medical Remedy that you are definitely going to want to try if you are one of the thousands of Americans who have:

1. Ear wax.

2. Fire insurance.

I am talking about an ear-wax-removal product called "ear candles." I swear I am not making this product up. Ear candles were brought to my attention by alert reader Marianna Wright-Newton who sent me an advertisement featuring a cartoon drawing of a man lying down on his side; sticking out of his left ear is a long, tapered object with flames shooting out of the top. This is not a small candle such as you find on birthday cakes. This is more along the lines of the torches that the villagers used to chase the monster out of Dr. Frankenstein's castle.

The cartoon man's mouth is wide open, and he has sort of a strange expression; you can't tell whether he's saying, "This certainly is a fine home remedy!" or "Help! My brain is on fire!"

More and funnier: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19930517&slug=1701675

The bad news is while looking for that column I remembered, I found this:

FEDS PROTECT US FROM MENACE OF EAR CANDLES
By Dave Barry, Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Published: Sunday, Sept. 12 1993
<SNIP>
EAR CANDLES

You may recall that a few months back I wrote a column about ear candles, an old home remedy consisting of wax-covered cotton cones that you insert into your ears, after which you set them (the cones) on fire. This is supposed to create a draft that sucks the wax out of your ears. I got a lot of letters in response to that column; many people claimed they've used ear candles for years with great results; some people claimed the whole thing is a fraud and all the "earwax" is actually produced by the candles.

Then several alert readers sent me an article from the July 29 Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, written by Graydon Hambrick and headlined: FEDERAL AGENTS SEIZE EAR CANDLES IN RAID. The article states that on July 28, U.S. marshals and agents of the Food and Drug Administration "swooped in" to a Columbus health store and "seized about 100 candles." An FDA spokesperson said the candles were seized because they did not have FDA approval, which is required for "anything used for treatment or prevention of disease in humans or animals." An official said that the raid was part of a wider ear-candle crackdown.

I, personally, am sleeping better, knowing something is being done about this menace. I'd like to see the FDA program dramatized in a TV series, "Ear Candle Patrol," wherein each week federal agents would confront dangerous, law-violating health-store clerks ("Look out, Matt! She's got a ginseng root!&quot .

<SNIP>

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/309453/FEDS-PROTECT-US-FROM-MENACE-OF-EAR-CANDLES.html?pg=all

And this:

Medical research shows ear candling dangerous, ineffective

Published: August 31, 2010
By CHARITY BROWN
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- Brenda Thompson gets a treatment called ear candling from Schyla Poyndexter-Moore at the Secrets of Nature restaurant and health food store in Washington, D.C.

A hollow candle, or a piece of fabric soaked in beeswax or paraffin, is placed in the ear canal with a paper plate resting on the head to prevent burns from the wax. Then, the candle or fabric is lit. According to supporters, the practice is a remedy for removing earwax and cures ailments such as ear infections, sinusitis, migraines, postnasal drip and cancer.

The origin of this technique is unknown, but some say it can be traced to the era before Christ, to ancient Egypt and/or India. Within the past decade, its popularity has increased. Beauty salons and spas offer candling, also known as ear coning and thermal auricular therapy, and kits are available at health food stores and flea markets.

Medical research, however, holds that the practice is both ineffective and dangerous. It showed up in February on the Food and Drug Administration's equivalent of the FBI's most-wanted list.

More: http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/08/31/1354870_medical-research-shows-ear-candling.html