[CAUT] Ear wax

[Diane Hofstetter]

There is only one way to know whether your ears were actually plugged with wax before, and whether they are plugged with wax Now.  Go to an ear specialist--an ENT, an Audiologist or a Hearing Aid Dispenser.  Just pick one who has a video-otoscope in the office so you can see for yourself.  Many only have hand held otoscopes and the patient can't see for himself.
 
There are other conditions that make you feel like you are plugged with wax.  An ear candle itself burns and makes a dark waxy residue, so it's not clear whether the wax you see as a result is the candle itself or not.
 
There are also varying degrees of plugged, so a simple shift of the wax in the canal could one day make you feel plugged and then some kind of movement makes you feel unplugged.
 
I spent a whole year after getting a job in a hearing aid office, using a variety of things to remove wax and looking at the results in my own ears--in fact, I took digital photos of the results through the video otoscope.
 
I finally purchased a video otoscope so that I could take it to PTG conventions and meetings so that techs could look in their own ears.



Diane Hofstetter





________________________________
> Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 10:46:37 -0800
> From: skline at peak.org
> To: caut at ptg.org
> Subject: Re: [CAUT] Ear wax
>
> On 12/1/2010 9:45 AM, Paul T Williams wrote:
> No myth my friend. Doubters. How do you explain my open ears today,
> then? Act of God?
>
> Hi, Paul
>
> The bottom line as I read the various sides of the argument is that ear
> candling helps some people, possibly harms others, and is ineffective
> for some others.
>
> I've read something else -- if you take the right omega 3 oils (like
> krill oil) and stop eating transfats (margarine, food fried at high
> temperature, seed oils) the wax doesn't cake up so it doesn't stay in
> there. There are other benefits to improving the kind of fats one eats
> anyway, so why not? Natural (not artificial hydrogenated) saturated
> fats (butter, eggs, suet, etc.) are not the problem. Seed oils harden
> up because they oxidize too easily. Transfats are already oxidized.
> They injure the insides of the arteries, so the liver sends cholesterol
> as a kind of bandage to heal them. == plaque.
>
> YMMV.
>
> This really does belong on the PTG hearing list.
>
> You can sign up at the PTG website, just like for pianotech and CAUT.
>
> Susan Kline
>