Problem Ear Wax? Set It On Fire Ear Candles All The Rage In Twin Falls; Doctors Mum

Your mother would be horrified.

“Never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear,” she’d say.

You could hear her if you didn’t have that glob of wax in there.

Since some people maybe never heard a word Mom said anyway, sticking the pointy end of a flaming candle into their ears seems to be all the rage these days.

“It’s a pleasant sensation,” said Debbie Wilson of The Health Food Place, one of the Twin Falls stores that sells ear candles.

“Many people have used them to clear wax out of their ears that’s been in there forever,” she said. “It’s kind of a tornado effect.”

The hollow, rolled paraffin wax candle, or cone, marketed by DynaPro of Ogden, Utah, sells for $1.39. At about 12 inches long and as big around as a finger, it’s designed to stick the pointy end in your ear. You light the other end and lose the earwax, converts say.

“People who have worn hearing aids didn’t have to wear them anymore,” Wilson said.

Those claims don’t impress the local medical community. One Twin Falls ear, nose and throat doctor, who declined to be identified for print, said he wanted nothing to do with the subject. He referred questions to the American Academy of Otolaryngology in Alexandria, Va.

A spokesman there also declined comment.

The candles create a vacuum that, in theory, can dislodge the wax and draw it into the ear cone. Whether they work as advertised is unclear, but there certainly is a market.

Earwax is substance secreted by the glands in the outer one-third of the ear canal.

The standard medical procedure is to remove soft wax by gently injecting water into the ear, but in severe cases, it must be removed with a tool called a curette.

Keith Owen, a Twin Falls advertising sales representative, said an office mate waxed poetic on the advantages of using one’s ear as a Menorah.

“He went on and on,” Owen said. “He said he could hear better.”

It took a while before Owen and another worker decided to try the candles.

“I thought I’d try it in the privacy of my own home,” Owen said, “and was talking to someone in the office about it.”

The next thing they knew they “lit them up in the office.”

“We locked the door,” Owen said. “You look kind of funny with your head bent over like that, but you should try it. Just for heavy cleaning. I’m a firm believer in it now. Two thumbs up.”