In a message dated 5/4/97 6:19:16 PM, you wrote: <<Dear Tim, I'm facinated, my wife and I have visions of lieing down on your side with a wick coming out of ones ear and a nice glopwing flame :-). I know this is probably not true, please enlighten a little further. Warmest regards, Barrie.>> Barrie, You are close to envisioning what it's like. Ear candles are made of linen coated in wax. The linen is wrapped into a tube about 240mm long. One end is conical with a about a 2 mm opening. The other end is about 12mm wide. A paper plate with a hole just big enough to hold the candle tightly is used to keep the candle in your ear. Flames do shoot off the candle and the paper plate (or large plastic lid) keep hot debris from falling on the side of your face. It takes someone to help the person getting a good ear cleaning. The person getting ears cleaned lays on the floor on their side. Make sure there is plenty of ventilation for the smoke (Outside only works if there is no wind). The candle is lit and inserted into the ear. Note: the paper plate should be flush against the face. You have a tight seal if there is no smoke coming out of the ear. As the candle burns down the ashes need to be cut off with scissors by the helper. The candle needs to burn down to 25mm from the paper plate. You are only supposed to do the procedure once in a week's time period. I do this procedure about every 5 months. My wife helped me just today with this procedure. I don't mean to make anyone uncomfortable, but I did extract a lot of wax. The ears looked clean with visual inspection, but I extracted a roll of wax 20mm long and 4mm in diameter from each ear. The only side affect I have found is itchy ears from really clean ears. That happened once when I did it again a week later. A drop of olive oil takes care of the itch. I buy my ear candles from a local health food store. I can also get them from a homeopathic doctor. Tim Coates University of South Dakota
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