"You want me to come over and do what??????"

LOL... no no no...its not what you think. So I have a fab friend who I am blessed to have living right across the street from me. She is mostly mainstream, but is very open to alternatives and new ideas. Anyway, I get a cryptic phone message from her the other day that she needed help with this "ear coning thing..."...huh... Sure that this was certainly blog material, I brought over my camera to document the event.

So she had heard from a friend that "ear coning" or "ear candling" was a very effective and natural way of getting rid of the swimmers ear problem that she had been suffering from. It involves using ear candles (hollow tubes of beeswax coated fabric about 12" long), fire and oil drops...normally you'd pay up to $75 from a homeopathic doctor to get this treatment done...but of course she thought ...my crazy friend Becky would be happy to do this procedure for me. She was right.... :)

One site states "The benefits include, improved hearing, vision, taste, smell, balance and sharpened mental ability. Ear candling helps to detoxify the sinus, lymph congestion, sore throat, earache, swimmers ear, chronic headaches and even allergies. Every body is different, yet candling is a therapy that adults, children, and even animals can benefit from. All who experience candling agree it is safe, soothing, relaxing, painless, and non-invasive."

STEP 1: trim the ear candle to fit the ear canal.

STEP 2: light the broad end of the ear candle and plug the narrow end of the hollow candle with my finger until a vacuum is created pulling smoke down and out the bottom of the ear candle.

STEP 3: Insert the candle into a plate to protect the person from wax burns.

STEP 4: Insert the candle snugly into their ear and hold there until the candle is about 3/4 of the way done burning.

STEP 5: Apply a couple drops of the ear oil.

We finished both ears in about 30mins... She said that she could hear better and felt a huge difference right away. It was easy to do with the help of someone else, the only thing that would have made it more fun would have been marshmallows and Graham crackers...lol.

When it was all done, we were grossly curious to see what this procedure pulled out of her head.... YUCK!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM a good friend LOL :)