Stick it in your ear

In 1971, I spent most of the year working as the program director for the Minnesota Society for the Prevention of Blindness.

At that time, the company shared space with the Minnesota State Medical Association in downtown St. Paul.

In addition to the glaucoma screenings that the Society conducted throughout the state, they also participated in the pre-school medical survey for vision and hearing.

As a result of that association, I learned how to spell, and pronounce,
ophthalmologist (the eye doctor) and otolaryngologist (the ear doctor).

Any otolaryngologist will tell you that the largest thing that you should put in your ear is your elbow, but that hasn’t slowed the sales of Q-tips.

However, there IS an alternative to Q-tips that can (1) improve your hearing and (2) improve your state of mind.

When Kelly was in China, she used to have “ear candling” done on a fairly regular basis.

She recently performed an “ear candling” on one of my ears.

Truth be told, it was a VERY relaxing experience, and it DID remove a lot of junk from my ear.

Ear candling is far from a recent phenomenon, since it has been practiced in the “Far East” for thousands of years.

The best candles are soy candles, since they burn a lot cleaner than conventional candles.

If you Google “ear candling”, you’ll discover that there is a lot of controversy about the procedure. Almost without exception, medical associations feel that the treatment is dangerous.

Personally, I feel that that particular opinion ..

is a crock.

PROPERLY DONE, there is nothing that is dangerous about ear candling.

Kelly DID manage to burn a hole in one of the towels that she had draped across my body, but that’s a small price to pay for having improved hearing.

According to the directions shown above, the candle should be removed once it is about 3 inches from the ear. If you get closer than that, you are entering the “danger zone”

Although Top Gun pilots may enjoy flying with their hair on fire, the rest of us aren’t going to enjoy the experience.

After having gone through the experience, I’m convinced that it is a worthwhile thing to experience on an occasional basis.

However, if you STILL disagree with me, all I can say is this:

“Hey, buddy, stick it in your ear”