Ear wax\equalization cure?

Its not often I give a personal reccomendation to anything, never mind
something a bit cranky.
Mrs Splosh has had a few ear probs recently due to a lump of wax in her ear
and chasing students up and down the 6m platform @c'ray. Somebody
reccomended Hopi Ear candles, to clear all the crap out.

The idea is that you stick a burning hollow tube in your ear, and the vacuum
created by shortage of air in the tube draws out all the wax from the ear.
She tried it and it worked, lots of goey and dry wax came out. I tried it
and the same result!

I normally dont think about equalizing at all, as it all happens
instinctively to about 15m when I'll get a squeeze and have to think about
it. Last weekend, I was down to 27m and only realised on the way home that
I didn't have to force it at the usual 15m.

http://www.therapy-school.co.uk/hopi.htm

You feel a bit daft lying on the couch with a flaming torch in your ear, but
you also look a bit daft wearing a rubber suit, black gimp mask, sucking a
large black dummy whilst jumping into cold water, so divers should be used
to feeling that way.

Give them a try

Alex

On Thu, 20 May 2004 11:25:18 +0100, "Splosh Junkie"
<marsh<removeme>diver@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> Its not often I give a personal reccomendation to anything, never mind
>something a bit cranky.
>Mrs Splosh has had a few ear probs recently due to a lump of wax in her ear
>and chasing students up and down the 6m platform @c'ray. Somebody
>reccomended Hopi Ear candles, to clear all the crap out.

Unforunately ear candling does not work and usually advertised in a
fraudulent and deceptive way. Save your money and get it syringed free
at the doctor if you need it, or buy hydrogen peroxide drops, or use
warmed olive oil which doesn't involve molten wax and naked flames.

They are even effectively banned from sale in Canada:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/iyh/m.../candling.html

The wax that comes out is wax residue and beeswax deliberately placed
inside to make it look like they are working.

Gareth

It sounds somewhat risky to apply uncontrolled suction to the ear canal, not
to mention the chance of hot candle wax falling inwards. Looking daft in
dive gear is one thing, but impersonating Mount Etna while pretending it's
doing me good is quite another.

Cliff.

"Splosh Junkie diver@tiscali.co.uk>" <marsh<removeme> wrote in message
news:40ac888f_1@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
> Its not often I give a personal reccomendation to anything, never mind
> something a bit cranky.
> The idea is that you stick a burning hollow tube in your ear, and the
vacuum
> created by shortage of air in the tube draws out all the wax from the ear.
> She tried it and it worked, lots of goey and dry wax came out. I tried it
> and the same result!
>
> You feel a bit daft lying on the couch with a flaming torch in your ear,
but
> you also look a bit daft wearing a rubber suit, black gimp mask, sucking a
> large black dummy whilst jumping into cold water, so divers should be used
> to feeling that way.

On Thu, 20 May 2004 11:25:18 +0100, "Splosh Junkie"
<marsh<removeme>diver@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> Its not often I give a personal reccomendation to anything, never mind
>something a bit cranky.
>Mrs Splosh has had a few ear probs recently due to a lump of wax in her ear
>and chasing students up and down the 6m platform @c'ray. Somebody
>reccomended Hopi Ear candles, to clear all the crap out.
>
I tried hopi one time at work.. interesting experience, but nothing
special came of it, so didn't go back.. however, a number of
colleagues went on to do numerous sessions.. 12 or more, and I think
keep going back.. seem to enjoy the experience too.

On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:10:23 +0100, "Cliff Coggin"
<clifford@ccoggin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

>It sounds somewhat risky to apply uncontrolled suction to the ear canal, not
>to mention the chance of hot candle wax falling inwards. Looking daft in
>dive gear is one thing, but impersonating Mount Etna while pretending it's
>doing me good is quite another.

Looking at the site referred to, it crazily points out that they are
illegal in Canada but are somehow registered in Europe, although all
they seem to have are CE markings which don't require any kind of
registration! The CE marking is for medical products, and reading
further all the manfufacturer mentions is that they have been tested
(by an unnamed "indepedant institute"...) and are medical devices -
ie. there has been no testing at all that they perform as advertised.

Frankly, if the claims on the websites were published in a magazine or
leaflet I am 99% sure that the Advertising Standards Authority would
be interested in checking out the claims.

Gareth

Gareth A. wrote:

> On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:10:23 +0100, "Cliff Coggin"
> <clifford@ccoggin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>It sounds somewhat risky to apply uncontrolled suction to the ear canal, not
>>to mention the chance of hot candle wax falling inwards. Looking daft in
>>dive gear is one thing, but impersonating Mount Etna while pretending it's
>>doing me good is quite another.
>
>
> Looking at the site referred to, it crazily points out that they are
> illegal in Canada but are somehow registered in Europe, although all
> they seem to have are CE markings which don't require any kind of
> registration! The CE marking is for medical products, and reading
> further all the manfufacturer mentions is that they have been tested
> (by an unnamed "indepedant institute"...) and are medical devices -
> ie. there has been no testing at all that they perform as advertised.
>
> Frankly, if the claims on the websites were published in a magazine or
> leaflet I am 99% sure that the Advertising Standards Authority would
> be interested in checking out the claims.
>

Is there any equivalent body that can check claims on websites,
especially if they're selling something from that website?

On Fri, 21 May 2004 13:14:47 +0100, Stuart Moore
<stjm2@cam.ac.uk.remove> wrote:

>Gareth A. wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 20 May 2004 15:10:23 +0100, "Cliff Coggin"
>> <clifford@ccoggin.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>It sounds somewhat risky to apply uncontrolled suction to the ear canal, not
>>>to mention the chance of hot candle wax falling inwards. Looking daft in
>>>dive gear is one thing, but impersonating Mount Etna while pretending it's
>>>doing me good is quite another.
>>
>>
>> Looking at the site referred to, it crazily points out that they are
>> illegal in Canada but are somehow registered in Europe, although all
>> they seem to have are CE markings which don't require any kind of
>> registration! The CE marking is for medical products, and reading
>> further all the manfufacturer mentions is that they have been tested
>> (by an unnamed "indepedant institute"...) and are medical devices -
>> ie. there has been no testing at all that they perform as advertised.
>>
>> Frankly, if the claims on the websites were published in a magazine or
>> leaflet I am 99% sure that the Advertising Standards Authority would
>> be interested in checking out the claims.
>>
>
>Is there any equivalent body that can check claims on websites,
>especially if they're selling something from that website?

Trading Standards, but they like to get an ASA ruling before they take
action against websites because they do all the hard work and then it
would presumably stand up in court if required. I recently had an ASA
ruling against some claims made by the manufacturers of a popular
product, but the same claims are still on their website. The TS
department I worked with said that they would be raising the matter
now that a ruling has been made.

Gareth