March 19, 2015 • 36 mins
Despite tons of people using cotton swabs each day to clean the earwax from their ears, cerumen (as earwax is clinically known) is actually quite beneficial to the health of your ears - and even kind of ingenious as your body's defense goes.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know front House Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Uh. Yeah,
it's stuff you should know. He just shrugged, like, what
(00:22):
are we gonna do? That's what we are episode number
seven something. Yeah, I have no idea either. It's in
the seven hundreds of folks. If you think there's only
three hundred because you're on iTunes, you're in for to
be doubly surprised. Yeah. Well, somebody um tweeted recently, I've
just found the How Stuff Works app and there's way
(00:45):
more stuff you should notice than there is on iTunes.
I hate you guys now. Wait, I was cool with
three one, but that's it. I had someone asking it
the other day if we feel like we're running out
of things topics, clearly we are because we're recording on
your way exactly. What did you tell him look for
boogers in the near future? Um no, I said no
(01:09):
that sometimes it feels a little like, oh my gosh,
what are we gonna do? But there's gazillions of topics
in the world at least, and gazillions of scientific that's right.
What is that? How many zeros? Is that a real number?
I don't know. I don't think it is. Let's say nine,
it's a real number if you're eight years old, but
watch it probably is a real number. Yeah, I think, Um,
(01:31):
a jillian is a real number. A bazillion jillian definitely is.
I would guess gazillion is by now I might actually
look that up. I mean, there's just like a handful
of mathematicians who are in charge of naming that kind
of stuff, you know. So, chuckers, while you're looking that up,
do you have ear wax? Um? Do you have a
(01:53):
problem you're wax? None? No, I don't either. No, I
wouldn't say so. Um. It is a little distressing, though,
even though we will find out it is awesome and
exactly how it's supposed to work. When it just sort
of falls out of your ear onto your shoulder. Yeah,
that's that's ideal. Actually, yeah, because ear wax in your
(02:16):
physiology in general doesn't care about what social group you're
a part of. Nope, it's just like, here's some ear
wax on your shoulder. Deal with it. Although and I
didn't look up why this is true? Apparently in northeastern
Asian countries like Korea and China, um they they're ear
wax is a little different. They're more likely to have
the dry ear wax UM, which can be hard and
(02:39):
red to black in color, which sounds gross and flaky
or pale yellow, whereas here we have that um, nasty,
gooey orange e mess wet ear wax. That is what
it's called. Yes, and the reason why actually is because
of the ABC living gene. That why, Yeah, they isolated
the gene that there was a reason causes the type
(03:02):
of ear wax that you get. And it turns out
that they say the w UM mutation is um or
the D mutation dry ear wax is recessive. So the
only way to get dry ear waxes if both of
your parents have dry ear wax, both carry the D
gene or D mutation of the ABC levan gene. Well,
(03:25):
I have both. Most people have our w D sea.
So you have to get to D alleles to dry
ear wax alleles to have dry ear wax yourself. If
you have a W in a D or two W
you're gonna have wet And for some reason I have both.
Can't you like one ear is dry and the other's wet. No,
(03:46):
like sometimes you know, if I get the old cotton
swab out, which now you're introducing something way beyond genetics.
That's not even apo genetics, that's human intervention. The point is,
if I get the cotton swab out, that's when I'll
get out the orange wet stuff. But um, I'll also
have the dry, flaky stuff that falls out sometimes probably,
I would guess. And I'm no ceremon expert, I'm no seaminisd.
(04:10):
Now what's the what's the word? Uh? Actually looked it
up for someone who studies this. It has to have
to do with ceremon m. I can't find it now.
It's so Seamonius doesn't ringing a bell. No, it's wrong.
I can't find what it is. Sorry, Okay, Well the
person who said, I'm not a person who studies ear wax.
(04:33):
But what I would guess is that when you're when
you're digging in there, you're getting to the fresher ear wax,
That's what I think. And then as it works itself
further and further out your ear, which is the natural process,
it's exposed to drier air, that ambient air, and it
drives out and flakes off, which is what it's supposed
(04:54):
to do. So I don't think you have both. I
think if you have both, the stuff inside your ear
would be dry, would be dry as well. Yeah, okay,
all right, well that makes sense. Um, So what ear
waxes or uh ceramon c E R U M E
N is the scientific name, but I'm sure they call
it wax. It's the third chubby angel. Now, that's cerebum um.
(05:19):
It is made up of secretions of a couple of
little specialized glands uh in the skin on the outer
third of the ear canal. Yes, um, so you have
your sebaceous glands and they're gonna secrete in these names
all sounds so growth really, but they're perfect for describing
what they are. Yeah, yeah, um, they secrete sebum as
(05:42):
E V m uh. And then you have um an
apocrene sweat gland that's modified that produces uh yeah, it combines,
it combines with the sebum, and that's where you get
your ceremony. And so see them in and of itself
is fairly normal. If you like, take your fingertip and
rub it alongside where your nose folds into your face.
(06:05):
That's well if if your stuff is at all oily,
the oil is see them. So apparently it mixes in
in your ear with the the that kind of apicrene
gland like you said, to form ceramon, which is its
own thing. It's not just see them, but all of
it is basically fatty, oily lipid e um compound that's
(06:29):
secreted by these glands in the skin cells, specialized glands. Yeah,
about six keratin, which is a protein. And then like
you said, the fatty acids, you've got dead skin cells, um,
hair follicles, dead bugs, little bugs. Yeah, lots of stuff
that comes out in this and like you, like you
(06:51):
said dust it probably dust mites then too. And like
you said, um, it's produced in the inner third of
the outer ear outer one third of the ear canal um.
And when it's produced in there, it's migrates outward thanks
to um the motion of the ocean. Right and you
(07:15):
talking and chewing. Yeah, I couldn't figure out, like how
does your ear wax move, But it's just from jaw movement.
Normal jaw movement moves the old or the newer stuff
outward and as it's coming out, all the gunk and
stuff that's protected your ear from are moved out with it.
So the stuff that flakes off and falls on your shoulder, Uh,
(07:35):
that everybody points and laughs at at the at the party, Um,
that is filled with all the stuff that your ear
reax caught along the way. It's a it's a beautiful,
elegant process. Probably was beautiful, um, aspect of the entire
human experience. Well, I think you're making a joke, but
I really do think that. Like it's the little things
(07:57):
like that about Like I'm amazed about the function of
the brain and of course the organs and all that,
but just something as simple as that mechanical talking and
chewing will work ear wax out of your ear. It's
just so basic, and I think it's awesome and I
think it's really cool. Actually, I know. To me, I
agree with you. Um. So some people produce a lot
of this. Um. I was gonna say gross stuff. But
(08:21):
have you seen Paddington the movie? Yeah? No, I heard
it was really good. It's very good, super super cute,
really well done. Why did you see that? Just because
it's a cute movie? Really yeah? Um, solid in theaters
and everything. UM, please tell me you took you me yeah.
And as a matter of fact, it was just me
and you, me and the whole theater. But if it's
(08:41):
just you and no kids, then it's like somebody you
might want to call that they did. I'm just a
Paddington fan, um, but I am now So anyway, Um,
there is a part where there's a part featuring ear
wax in Paddington. It's it does not celebrate the beau
of ear wax. It's the exact opposite. And actually you
(09:03):
mean was like god or it was really gross but
just awesome. So anyway, Gussie Gussie Paddington. Is that a spoiler? Okay,
I don't think so, maybe for like a five year
old you know. Um, So, like I said, some people
produce a lot of the stuff. Um, some people don't
(09:23):
produce as much, and they don't really know why, but
they do know that sometimes stress and anxiety, um can
increase production of your wax, which makes interesting hormones, hormones
affected your glands go off. It also said that some
drugs can increase your ear wax production. And I looked
(09:43):
all over and can you find the drugs? But if
stress and anxiety does hiahuasca, I imagine yeah, or cocaine
would probably make you produce more ear wax or something.
Oh yeah, when you put that stuff in your ear, yeah,
or something that makes you like to your jaw lot.
Oh sure, that could probably get more ear wax out. Yeah. Interesting,
(10:04):
I never thought about that. I couldn't find any anything else.
Um is gross, as you might think ear wax as
though it actually is a great thing for your body.
And there's a very good reason, uh why you have it,
because there are four main functions that your ear wax
is going to serve my friend. Uh. One of them
is it creates an acidic environment. That's great, that kills
(10:27):
helps kill bacteria and fun Guy. Oh even better, number two,
Um it is, Well, that's that's a big deal too,
because your ear, your inner ear, like that is really
a place where fungus and bacteria would thrive because it's
moist and dark, and you know what we always say
about moist dark places, fun Guy thrives, that's right. Um.
(10:49):
The thing is is, it doesn't seem like that be
a big problem to have fun Guy in your ear,
but it would because it would affect things like your balance, nausea,
ear aches. Um, it just wouldn't be good so the
fact that earwax produces in a cidic environment alone makes
earwax a beautiful thing and to be celebrated. So if
(11:09):
we did, we could just stop there. We could, but
you can go on. Like you said, there's four and
that was just one quarter of these these benefits that
your ex pistos. Secondly, it is a lube. Um. It
lubricates your ear can basically to keep it from drying out.
And um, you know you don't want the inner ear
becoming all like itchy and dry and craggedy, and you
(11:34):
want to hear something weird that I've a new personal
hygiene thing I have to do as of yesterday, starting yesterday,
something I'll probably have to do my whole I have
to moisturize not ears. Now. I thought you gonna say,
heir inside the ear. I was like, I have been
doing that for a while. It's getting I got a
little fro inside ear fro yeah, but no, like taking
(11:56):
moisturizer and like rubbing on my ears because I got
a haircat yesterday and like my ears were exposed and
all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, why is like
there a streak of white on my ear? And they're
bright red, and I realized, like, my ears are chapped,
and that is brand new or else. I just noticed it.
So I'm an ear moisturizer. Now, yeah, you had that
seventies uh ear muff hairstyle cut off of your ears
(12:19):
so your ears were exposed. Yeah, it was pretty seventies,
wasn't well. I was growing my hair out to to
create like a blank slate of you know that could
be worked with. It was kind of longish for you.
It was really long and it it was that seventies
like ear muff thing wasn't quite It was getting there.
It looks good, very nice. Thanks. Did that make you uncomfortable? No,
(12:40):
I was fishing for that the whole reason I brought
that story. You looked either sheepish or really uncomfortable with
a little bit both. Alright, gotcha? Alright. Number three on
top four things that earwax does, Uh is your ceremon
and your hair just like let him exactly. Um, it's
gonna discover just uh everyone's worst nightmare, which is spider
(13:04):
crawling in there, which I covered. Uh, you know that
happened to Emily. I think I talked about that on
one of the shows that was genuinely one of the
most awesome things that I've ever experienced, because it did
not happen to me. Wasn't there a picture? Didn't you
post a picture of it or something like that? Um No,
but there I think I I posted a picture of
(13:26):
a happening to some woman in China. I think that
was frightening, And it was a picture of a spider
looking out of the woman's ear canal right, yeah? Yeah,
but Emily's if people haven't heard this story, it was
I think it was in the middle of the night
or something. She was like, I got this weird fluttering
in my ear and I don't know what's going on
in there. And I was like, well, you know, I
took in the bathroom and trying to light and I
(13:48):
was like, holy crap. And the spider I think work.
Didn't it with the flash flight? Remember like, if you
look at your I don't know, did the did They're
saying yes, yes, okay, so there you go. Well, all
I remember thinking is only I don't want to have
to break this to you, but you have a spider
in your ear? You didn't like chloroformer first? I should have. Yeah,
(14:10):
she was not excited about that. She was not pumped,
but so, well, what was the process for getting it out? Well,
I've looked on the internet super quickly, um to see
how and they said to flush it out and um,
just like a little warm. Oh my gosh, you did
use tweezers. Yeah, And I put the water in there
and it kind of um loosened it up, and went
(14:30):
in there and got the tweezers and I was like,
look at this. How big was it? Oh? I mean
it wasn't huge, but it was It was enough spider
for her taste. Yeah, more than enough, right, dude, it was.
I can't imagine that some people like sleep with vesseline
in their ears to keep bugs from crawling in. Yeah,
like that is a thing. Yeah, I mean people don't
(14:52):
want bugs in their ears. No, but that's taken. I
mean that's just parents severe paranois. I think if you're
sleeping that your muffs are vesselly in your ears, you know,
your moss. I thought about that, you all right? And
number four finally is um, your ear wax is gonna
trap some dead skin and hair cells and basically all
of that junk to carry it back out to keep
(15:15):
it clean. So it sounds sort of counterintuitive to trap
that stuff, but it's trapping it so it can carry
it out. And if you didn't have your wax, it
would just go in there, right, And if you chew
things like celery and you talk, then that your wax
is going to work its way out in a slow
process where all this stuff is cleaned out and you
don't ever have to do anything with it under ideal circumstances.
(15:38):
Not always are circumstances ideal, And we'll talk about how
things can go wrong after this, Okay, Chuck's so ideally
(16:01):
you don't have to ever think about ear wax or
anything like that to brush it off your shoulder, right.
But um, for some people, ear wax can build up
and become impacted, a lot of times it's because people
mess with it, like with cotton swabs on a stick.
You know, you may have seen the advertisement on the
Big Game. You're just called cotton swabs, right, yeah, okay, Um,
(16:24):
so when uh, if you use that, a lot of
people use those to clear out their ear wax. Right,
you're supposed to know it's doing the exact opposite, because
your ear wax is um created and moves from the
outside third of your inner ear um. When you rub
(16:44):
cotton swab on it, you're actually pushing it in further
than it's supposed to be and it it can't get
out is easily there. So what you're going to do
eventually is have ear wax build up. Yeah, And it's
it's so hard to get people to not do that
because is it's so um rewarding when you get out
of the shower and use that swab and you get
(17:05):
that orange kunk and you're like, oh man, I'm so
glad that's out of my body. But it's it's got
a purpose. Leave it there. You're supposed to leave it there.
Plus there's I mean, using cotton swabs can lead to
other kinds of dangers, like you can push too hard
and prefer your ear drums. I think it really is true.
You're not supposed to put anything larger than the end
of a football in your ear um. You can also
(17:30):
clean it too much. It can result in something called
swimmers ear. We're basically for people who spend a lot
of time in pool. Their ears are constantly irrigated and
the canal becomes basically free of um of ear wax,
and as a result, bad things can happen. Yeah, And
(17:51):
they say, if you do have swimmers, ere um, put
a few drops of an acidic slightly acidic, not acid
like hydrochloricas. Let's put a gallon drome. What is a
slightly acidic fluid? I wonder, Uh, lady, lemon juice, that's
what I would guess, That's probably what I would do.
I hope we're not advising something that's really nat. No.
(18:12):
As a matter of fact, maybe you should go look
up what you should put in there or go to
your doctor. Yes, but they advised some slightly acidic fluid
in the ear after you swim, and that established re
establishes what should be a normal acidic environment. Yeah, because
you when you strip out that ear wax, you lose
those big four benefits and all of a sudden, your
ear is dry and cracky, and you've got fungus and
(18:34):
bacteria growing in there, and you get ear infections and
it's not fun. The big four um you and back
to creating a build up of ear wax, you get
what's called ceramon impaction, and that is when like you
have a bunch of ear wax pressed against your ear
drum and it can result in all sorts of stuff
(18:55):
like headaches, nausea, ear aches, coughing for some reason. Um,
and that can be from using Q tips. People who
use hearing aids run into this a lot. Uh. And
when your ceremony becomes impacted, you have to go to
the doctor. That's right. Which my sweet wife had to
go to the doctor when she was a little girl
(19:16):
because ear wax impaction. Yeah, and uh she said it sucked. Well,
when you go to the doctor if it comes to that, Um,
they're gonna have quite a few techniques that could use. Um,
you're syringing is one of them. And then comes painful.
It does. I don't think it is, though. I bet
it's actually quite a relief. Yeah, that's not how I
(19:37):
hear it. Really is it painful? Yeah? Umi says it
really is not fun. Well, I didn't know if that
was like a five year old Umi or well yeah, yeah,
but even as an adult she remembers it as not
being very fun. Is Paddington Jumi? Maybe that's why she
had such a reaction. Maybe, Um, they'll use other instruments.
Sometimes you use a microphone or I'm sorry, a microscope.
(19:58):
That'd be weird to magn to find the ear canal.
They shout into it to shatter your ear ax. Um,
and some people have a more narrow ear canal, or
if you have a perforated ear drum or something that
can be a problem. Um. Basically you want to go
to a doctor. You could try some home methods like
(20:20):
peroxide or maybe mineral oil. Yeah, apparently warm mineral oil
kind of breaks it up a little bit. Yeah, I
used to. That's one of my most pleasing memories as
a kid when I had ear aches, as my mom
would like heat up mineral oil and put in my arrows.
But that was nice, felt really nice. It's very warm.
And when for some reason, I like the feeling of
(20:40):
water closing my ear, like when I get into a pool.
Oh yeah, I'll but probably because of that. Yeah maybe,
so I didn't think about that. Do you like that
or what? I just you just like crawling into the field.
Why is Chuck just floating in the pool like a baby? Um?
I no, I've never had much of an affinity for
(21:02):
water in my ears because some people hate it. I
don't hate it. I don't like it. Yeah, And like
you know, I'll bang on the side of my head
if it feels like there's like a drop of water
in there. Does that work? Uh? It can not always.
I think normally the water just has to dry. Sometimes
I get dizzy in my head, hurt. I used to
see when I lifeguarded. I would see swim team members
(21:23):
do that though, and I was always like, I don't
know if that just doesn't seem right. Once in a
while it does and it just goes and all of
a sudden you can hear normally. Again. Interesting. I didn't
see the reason for this though, but they did. Um
in this one article I saw have caution people against
ear irrigation if you had diabetes. What? Yeah? Why? I
(21:47):
have no idea. I meant to follow up on that.
So we don't know what drugs cause an increase in
ear wax build up, and we don't know why if
you have diabetes you shouldn't do ear can irrigation. I
don't know. They said not to use irrigation if you
have a perforated ear drum. Yeah, I get that tube
in the ear drum A weekend immune system or diabetes. Huh,
(22:12):
have no idea. I don't have to follow up on
social media and let people know. Um, But they do
say if you do want to clean your ear. It's
not like you can't clean your ears, but just wash
your external ear with a cloth. But you should never
stick something into your ear canal right, it's just no good.
But it's interesting that the cotton swab businesses huge. I mean,
(22:34):
they've made a if you think about it, they made
I don't want to say it's they shouldn't be selling
these things now, I know what you mean, though, you know. Yeah,
apparently that I couldn't find out how much um people
spend on cotton swabs every year or how many are produced.
We couldn't find out that either. But for two thousand eleven,
(22:54):
apparently Americans spent sixty three million dollars on ear cleaning stuff,
home ear cleaning stuff, and I am doing a lot
of that went to cotton swabs, but also like home
irrigation kits and stuff like that. Yeah, because you can
get those at the drug store, right, and those are fine?
I guess, yeah, I don't know. I mean, everything is
upside down right now. Well, no, I think the irrigation
(23:18):
is fine if you don't fall into one of those
categories that I mentioned, because you're not sticking an object
into your ear. That and then if you don't do
it too frequently to where you're stripping the ear wax
out of your ear right, because it's not like that
thing just replenishes overnight. Guys, I know, and you know
I used the cotton swabs, not a lot, but occasionally.
But I'm not gonna do it anymore. But it is,
(23:39):
like I said, it's it feels so good to get
a big hunk of that stuff out. Yeah, I've never
been into those. Ye, I'm not gonna do it anymore.
I'm gonna tell the only two. I'm gonna burn all
that stuff. All I do is I take some soap
and lather at my hands, do the outside of my ears,
and then, like I guess, I just kind of follow
the contours the inside of my ears. And I'm trying
to remember, like do I go into my ear canals?
(24:01):
And I think I intuitively stop with your fingers, yeah,
and about the outside, so I don't really go into
the ear canal and then rinse it out and get
off and get out of the shower. And then now I, um,
I moisturized my ears afterward, is the last step. That's great. Um.
The other thing too, that they of course you should
(24:22):
never ever do. Like cotton swabs is one thing, but
like a car key or bobby pin or like a toothpick,
what is wrong with you? I don't know that you
should never ever stick something like that in your ear
because you're just asking for trouble, big trouble. Um. All right, Well,
after this break we are going to talk about you're candling.
(24:56):
All right, So Chuck, you teased everybody with ear candling.
Why don't you tell everyone what that is? It's hokem okay,
describe the hokem well ear candling. And a lot of
people don't know this, I think. I think a lot
of folks say, like, oh my gosh, it's the best
thing ever. Um. It is also known as auricular candling
or coning, and it is a procedure once you put
(25:17):
a cone shaped um waxy cone shaped device in the
ear canal um and it's got usually a plate underneath
it between the cone in your ear, and you light
it on fire. And supposedly what it does is that
you stick the thing in your ear and then light
it on fire. Yeah, supposedly what it does is it
(25:38):
creates a vacuum to pull out um impurities. Right because
the flame supposedly needs oxygen, while the flame definitely needs
oxygen to burn, and it's getting its oxygen by sucking
it out of the ear canal through the cone, hence
creating a vacuum. And as it does, like you said,
it sucks out impurities and ear wax and supposedly also
(26:00):
clears your sinuses, um, clears the the plaque out of
your um den drites and all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah.
This one article by Lisa roe uh Rosen, m D.
Said she went to and this was in the nineties,
but she went to a Discovery expo in Atlanta and
said that they had ear candle ers there and one
of the exhibitions and the lady said that ran the
(26:22):
booth quote it cleans the whole head, brains and all
they're all connected, you know, Oh yeah end quote. UM.
And of course it was in Atlanta. I'm like, oh great,
although that doesn't necessarily mean that could be anyway. You're right,
but um, there is there are a lot of people
that think, you know, it's um, it's a cleanse for
(26:43):
your ear, and it does connect to your brain and
it clears your head, and it's a spiritual thing and
you know, they don't know where exactly it came from,
but uh, China and ancient Tibet and yeah, pre Columbian
South America, Atlantis. Yeah, they all are cited as places
where it might have happened. Yeah, no one has any
idea where this stuff originated. Could have been created in
(27:05):
the US and the seventies for all anybody knows. Should
we read some of the things that supposedly helps. Yeah,
we should probably also say if you haven't been able
to tell by now, um, science is thoroughly debunked. Ear
candling um. And this is from that article. There's something
that Dr Rosen and some of her colleagues got together
and kind of step by step took down the idea. Yeah,
(27:28):
there's a list of like forty things. We won't go
to them all, but release vertigo, clears the eyes, purifies
the blood, um aids sinusitis, relieves ear aches, opens and
aligns in your chakra, releases blocked energy, reduces stress, intention
stabilizes your emotions. Um, it does none of that, because
(27:51):
it is it is just been proven to be an
outright not only fraud but dangerous right. So, and here's
why so. Um. The first one is that you can't
pass liquids and gases through an ear drum that isn't
perforated or ruptured um. So it's not sucking anything out
(28:12):
of your inner ear, or your um lymph system, or
your sinuses or your brain. That's where your ears pop
when you're in a plane. Right, If if you could
pass air through there, that wouldn't happen. There would be
no atmospheric pressure going on. Right, So that means that
sticking an ear candle in your outer ears not going
to suck anything out because it can't pass through. That's
(28:35):
that's point one, right, that's point one. Point two is oxygen. Uh, well,
it will create that vacuum and and suck out the impurities. Yeah,
and that is just not true. Yeah apparently and it
and Yeah, doing trials of ear candles, they weren't able
to um create a vacuum in any of them, So
(28:56):
there's no vacuum created, that's right. Uh. There's also uh
the idea that if a vacuum were created, it would
suck impurities out. Apparently after ear candling some of these,
at least one of the same trials studied the stuff
the residue that was found afterwards, like I guess in
(29:16):
the stump of the ear candle. Well yeah, and that's
what people point to because there's all this gunk and
they're like, look at all this stuff that came out
of my ear. Oh my god. Right, So what it
turns out to be is ash from the ear candle
and left over wax from the ear candle, but not
just ear candle, not ear whax, just the candle residue. Yeah,
like they tested the substance that is not cerebumay in
(29:38):
any former fashion. Uh, the what about the idea that
it's safe and effective. I think we took care of
the effective part, but the safe thing, apparently there's a
lot of injuries you can get from it. Um that
you can be burned is one thing. Um, you can
perforate your ear drum, you can get infections. Um, you
(29:59):
can get built up of the candle wax to replace
whatever wax you think you're getting out. Yeah, it could
have the reverse effect exactly. And then um, one woman
actually died from a fire that was caused in two
thousand five from ear candling. I looked it up. She
was doing it, I guess by herself on her bed
and the ear candle fell out of her ear and
(30:20):
caught her bed sheets on fire. And she made it
out of her house fine, but she was asthmatic and
had an asthmatic reaction to the smoke and died. How
did happen that fast? I don't know. I guess she
had some bunch of bed sheets or something of like
some flammable material. Um, there is a company I won't
(30:42):
name the company, but one company that made it. And
if you it came with a seventy five page manual
and a thirty minute video tape. I guess this is
a while ago. It was a video tape and candles
and plate guards and flame retarded cloths and oil and
then uh otoscope. And if you read the flyer with
this kit, it says, quote it supplies you with everything
(31:05):
you need for a safe and effective session of entertainment
right for entertainment purposes only because apparently, I think it
says that Canada regulates those things. Are the US does
those medical devices? If they make any health claims? Yeah,
I think they're illegal in Canada outright. Um, or at
least they were. I'm not sure if they still are,
but um, yeah, the f d A won't even I mean,
(31:28):
you can't make any kind of claim on the box
if you if you get an ear candle at your
little health food store, just read it carefully. They can't
make any claims for entertainment purposes because it's a hoot
to put a candle in your ear and light it
on fire. There was one other thing I came across
in the articles you sent me, Um, and I don't
(31:48):
know if it's true, but it sounds fantastic that if
if you could create a vacuum with an ear candle,
the negative pressure created by the vacuum would rupture your
ear drop them right, which sounds pretty awesome. Yeah. I
don't know if it's true. It wasn't backed up with
a source or anything like that. I couldn't find it
anywhere else, but it's pretty hilarious. Yeah, So don't ear
(32:09):
candle people. And if you write in and say no,
you should see the stuff that comes out. It is
not your ear wax. You should put that stuff beneath
the gas chromatograph and see what you think. I mean,
it's proven. This is like what was we talked about recently,
the crop circles. Man, we got eat from that to
people like no, it's not proven. What was it. I
(32:33):
think it was that Oklowa's crop circles. When we're like, no,
they've proven that. These guys came out and said we
made it up. No, I know what they were saying though,
like it. It's just like we were talking about with ESPs.
Because you can disprove right, right, some of it doesn't
mean that this proves all of it. Except with crop circles.
We should come up with the stuff. You should have
a T shirt. Friends don't let friends ear candle. Yeah, yeah,
(32:56):
I just love your ear wax. Yeah, let it fall
out on your shoulder and let someone point it out
and you say that's nature baby, Yeah, it's because I
eat celery. Uh. If you want to know more about
your wax, you can type the word into the search
bar at how stuff works dot com. I think we
have it done as one word maybe uh yeah, uh
(33:18):
and uh, I said search bar, which means it's time
for listening to mail. I'm gonna call this ice cream
follow up. We've got a lot of good stuff on
ice cream. People really liked that episode. Hey guys, I'm
a student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Started
listening to your podcast just this week, and I'm officially hooked.
I'm listening to your podcast on ice cream. That's really
(33:40):
interesting because I've worked in an ice cream parlor for
the last five summers. Wilson's opened in nineteen o six
and it's still going strong today, one of the most
famous restaurants in Wisconsin. Uh. There are definitely different types
of vanilla ice cream. We use two types, French or
deluxe vanilla and purple vanilla. The label on this other
vanilla is purple. We use purple vanilla for shakes and
(34:02):
malts because it's less rich allows for the flavor of
the shaker malt to be more distinguished. He saw French
vanilla and ice cream cone Sundays and floats, and you
mentioned having root beer floats. Reminded me of an interesting
thing that I've noticed. People often get offended when they
order a black cow and we have to ask them
what it is. That's because almost everyone has a different
idea of what a black cow consists of. Some say
(34:25):
that it's a root beer float. Some say that it's
a root beer float with chocolate ice cream. Some say
it's a coke float, some say it's a blended root
beer float, etcetera, etcetera. Somehow they all got labeled as
black cow. Thanks for giving them me more ice cream knowledge.
I'll actually be able to answer customers now when they
ask what the difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt is?
(34:46):
And that is from Andrea Nelson and she says, ps,
those nasty, cheap cones with the flat bottoms are known
as cake cones. Yeah, I saw that afterwards. Don't order
them ever there. I mean, if you had Jason's Delhi
and that's all they got, oh, is they have the
free ice cream? Right? Huh? Yeah? And that's how it was.
(35:07):
Like the day that we recorded ice Cream and I
couldn't remember the name of the count I think I
ended up going that night and there was cake cone.
I was like, yes, cake cone. Somebody else called it
a wafer cone, but I think that's just wrong. I
see where that would come from, because it's wafer esk. Yeah,
I mean it makes sense, but I've never seen it
called that before, and that's too close to waffle cone, right,
(35:30):
you know, right? It makes people confused. So thanks to
Andrea Nelson for that one. It Thanks Andrea. If you
want to get in touch with us to say hi
or to tell us about ice cream or anything like that.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email the
Stuff Podcast at how Stuffworks dot com, and as always,
(35:50):
you can join us at our home on the web.
They'll look Curious Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
stuff Works dot com. M
Welcome to you Stuff you should know front House Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry Uh. Yeah,
it's stuff you should know. He just shrugged, like, what
(00:22):
are we gonna do? That's what we are episode number
seven something. Yeah, I have no idea either. It's in
the seven hundreds of folks. If you think there's only
three hundred because you're on iTunes, you're in for to
be doubly surprised. Yeah. Well, somebody um tweeted recently, I've
just found the How Stuff Works app and there's way
(00:45):
more stuff you should notice than there is on iTunes.
I hate you guys now. Wait, I was cool with
three one, but that's it. I had someone asking it
the other day if we feel like we're running out
of things topics, clearly we are because we're recording on
your way exactly. What did you tell him look for
boogers in the near future? Um no, I said no
(01:09):
that sometimes it feels a little like, oh my gosh,
what are we gonna do? But there's gazillions of topics
in the world at least, and gazillions of scientific that's right.
What is that? How many zeros? Is that a real number?
I don't know. I don't think it is. Let's say nine,
it's a real number if you're eight years old, but
watch it probably is a real number. Yeah, I think, Um,
(01:31):
a jillian is a real number. A bazillion jillian definitely is.
I would guess gazillion is by now I might actually
look that up. I mean, there's just like a handful
of mathematicians who are in charge of naming that kind
of stuff, you know. So, chuckers, while you're looking that up,
do you have ear wax? Um? Do you have a
(01:53):
problem you're wax? None? No, I don't either. No, I
wouldn't say so. Um. It is a little distressing, though,
even though we will find out it is awesome and
exactly how it's supposed to work. When it just sort
of falls out of your ear onto your shoulder. Yeah,
that's that's ideal. Actually, yeah, because ear wax in your
(02:16):
physiology in general doesn't care about what social group you're
a part of. Nope, it's just like, here's some ear
wax on your shoulder. Deal with it. Although and I
didn't look up why this is true? Apparently in northeastern
Asian countries like Korea and China, um they they're ear
wax is a little different. They're more likely to have
the dry ear wax UM, which can be hard and
(02:39):
red to black in color, which sounds gross and flaky
or pale yellow, whereas here we have that um, nasty,
gooey orange e mess wet ear wax. That is what
it's called. Yes, and the reason why actually is because
of the ABC living gene. That why, Yeah, they isolated
the gene that there was a reason causes the type
(03:02):
of ear wax that you get. And it turns out
that they say the w UM mutation is um or
the D mutation dry ear wax is recessive. So the
only way to get dry ear waxes if both of
your parents have dry ear wax, both carry the D
gene or D mutation of the ABC levan gene. Well,
(03:25):
I have both. Most people have our w D sea.
So you have to get to D alleles to dry
ear wax alleles to have dry ear wax yourself. If
you have a W in a D or two W
you're gonna have wet And for some reason I have both.
Can't you like one ear is dry and the other's wet. No,
(03:46):
like sometimes you know, if I get the old cotton
swab out, which now you're introducing something way beyond genetics.
That's not even apo genetics, that's human intervention. The point is,
if I get the cotton swab out, that's when I'll
get out the orange wet stuff. But um, I'll also
have the dry, flaky stuff that falls out sometimes probably,
I would guess. And I'm no ceremon expert, I'm no seaminisd.
(04:10):
Now what's the what's the word? Uh? Actually looked it
up for someone who studies this. It has to have
to do with ceremon m. I can't find it now.
It's so Seamonius doesn't ringing a bell. No, it's wrong.
I can't find what it is. Sorry, Okay, Well the
person who said, I'm not a person who studies ear wax.
(04:33):
But what I would guess is that when you're when
you're digging in there, you're getting to the fresher ear wax,
That's what I think. And then as it works itself
further and further out your ear, which is the natural process,
it's exposed to drier air, that ambient air, and it
drives out and flakes off, which is what it's supposed
(04:54):
to do. So I don't think you have both. I
think if you have both, the stuff inside your ear
would be dry, would be dry as well. Yeah, okay,
all right, well that makes sense. Um, So what ear
waxes or uh ceramon c E R U M E
N is the scientific name, but I'm sure they call
it wax. It's the third chubby angel. Now, that's cerebum um.
(05:19):
It is made up of secretions of a couple of
little specialized glands uh in the skin on the outer
third of the ear canal. Yes, um, so you have
your sebaceous glands and they're gonna secrete in these names
all sounds so growth really, but they're perfect for describing
what they are. Yeah, yeah, um, they secrete sebum as
(05:42):
E V m uh. And then you have um an
apocrene sweat gland that's modified that produces uh yeah, it combines,
it combines with the sebum, and that's where you get
your ceremony. And so see them in and of itself
is fairly normal. If you like, take your fingertip and
rub it alongside where your nose folds into your face.
(06:05):
That's well if if your stuff is at all oily,
the oil is see them. So apparently it mixes in
in your ear with the the that kind of apicrene
gland like you said, to form ceramon, which is its
own thing. It's not just see them, but all of
it is basically fatty, oily lipid e um compound that's
(06:29):
secreted by these glands in the skin cells, specialized glands. Yeah,
about six keratin, which is a protein. And then like
you said, the fatty acids, you've got dead skin cells, um,
hair follicles, dead bugs, little bugs. Yeah, lots of stuff
that comes out in this and like you, like you
(06:51):
said dust it probably dust mites then too. And like
you said, um, it's produced in the inner third of
the outer ear outer one third of the ear canal um.
And when it's produced in there, it's migrates outward thanks
to um the motion of the ocean. Right and you
(07:15):
talking and chewing. Yeah, I couldn't figure out, like how
does your ear wax move, But it's just from jaw movement.
Normal jaw movement moves the old or the newer stuff
outward and as it's coming out, all the gunk and
stuff that's protected your ear from are moved out with it.
So the stuff that flakes off and falls on your shoulder, Uh,
(07:35):
that everybody points and laughs at at the at the party, Um,
that is filled with all the stuff that your ear
reax caught along the way. It's a it's a beautiful,
elegant process. Probably was beautiful, um, aspect of the entire
human experience. Well, I think you're making a joke, but
I really do think that. Like it's the little things
(07:57):
like that about Like I'm amazed about the function of
the brain and of course the organs and all that,
but just something as simple as that mechanical talking and
chewing will work ear wax out of your ear. It's
just so basic, and I think it's awesome and I
think it's really cool. Actually, I know. To me, I
agree with you. Um. So some people produce a lot
of this. Um. I was gonna say gross stuff. But
(08:21):
have you seen Paddington the movie? Yeah? No, I heard
it was really good. It's very good, super super cute,
really well done. Why did you see that? Just because
it's a cute movie? Really yeah? Um, solid in theaters
and everything. UM, please tell me you took you me yeah.
And as a matter of fact, it was just me
and you, me and the whole theater. But if it's
(08:41):
just you and no kids, then it's like somebody you
might want to call that they did. I'm just a
Paddington fan, um, but I am now So anyway, Um,
there is a part where there's a part featuring ear
wax in Paddington. It's it does not celebrate the beau
of ear wax. It's the exact opposite. And actually you
(09:03):
mean was like god or it was really gross but
just awesome. So anyway, Gussie Gussie Paddington. Is that a spoiler? Okay,
I don't think so, maybe for like a five year
old you know. Um, So, like I said, some people
produce a lot of the stuff. Um, some people don't
(09:23):
produce as much, and they don't really know why, but
they do know that sometimes stress and anxiety, um can
increase production of your wax, which makes interesting hormones, hormones
affected your glands go off. It also said that some
drugs can increase your ear wax production. And I looked
(09:43):
all over and can you find the drugs? But if
stress and anxiety does hiahuasca, I imagine yeah, or cocaine
would probably make you produce more ear wax or something.
Oh yeah, when you put that stuff in your ear, yeah,
or something that makes you like to your jaw lot.
Oh sure, that could probably get more ear wax out. Yeah. Interesting,
(10:04):
I never thought about that. I couldn't find any anything else.
Um is gross, as you might think ear wax as
though it actually is a great thing for your body.
And there's a very good reason, uh why you have it,
because there are four main functions that your ear wax
is going to serve my friend. Uh. One of them
is it creates an acidic environment. That's great, that kills
(10:27):
helps kill bacteria and fun Guy. Oh even better, number two,
Um it is, Well, that's that's a big deal too,
because your ear, your inner ear, like that is really
a place where fungus and bacteria would thrive because it's
moist and dark, and you know what we always say
about moist dark places, fun Guy thrives, that's right. Um.
(10:49):
The thing is is, it doesn't seem like that be
a big problem to have fun Guy in your ear,
but it would because it would affect things like your balance, nausea,
ear aches. Um, it just wouldn't be good so the
fact that earwax produces in a cidic environment alone makes
earwax a beautiful thing and to be celebrated. So if
(11:09):
we did, we could just stop there. We could, but
you can go on. Like you said, there's four and
that was just one quarter of these these benefits that
your ex pistos. Secondly, it is a lube. Um. It
lubricates your ear can basically to keep it from drying out.
And um, you know you don't want the inner ear
becoming all like itchy and dry and craggedy, and you
(11:34):
want to hear something weird that I've a new personal
hygiene thing I have to do as of yesterday, starting yesterday,
something I'll probably have to do my whole I have
to moisturize not ears. Now. I thought you gonna say,
heir inside the ear. I was like, I have been
doing that for a while. It's getting I got a
little fro inside ear fro yeah, but no, like taking
(11:56):
moisturizer and like rubbing on my ears because I got
a haircat yesterday and like my ears were exposed and
all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, why is like
there a streak of white on my ear? And they're
bright red, and I realized, like, my ears are chapped,
and that is brand new or else. I just noticed it.
So I'm an ear moisturizer. Now, yeah, you had that
seventies uh ear muff hairstyle cut off of your ears
(12:19):
so your ears were exposed. Yeah, it was pretty seventies,
wasn't well. I was growing my hair out to to
create like a blank slate of you know that could
be worked with. It was kind of longish for you.
It was really long and it it was that seventies
like ear muff thing wasn't quite It was getting there.
It looks good, very nice. Thanks. Did that make you uncomfortable? No,
(12:40):
I was fishing for that the whole reason I brought
that story. You looked either sheepish or really uncomfortable with
a little bit both. Alright, gotcha? Alright. Number three on
top four things that earwax does, Uh is your ceremon
and your hair just like let him exactly. Um, it's
gonna discover just uh everyone's worst nightmare, which is spider
(13:04):
crawling in there, which I covered. Uh, you know that
happened to Emily. I think I talked about that on
one of the shows that was genuinely one of the
most awesome things that I've ever experienced, because it did
not happen to me. Wasn't there a picture? Didn't you
post a picture of it or something like that? Um No,
but there I think I I posted a picture of
(13:26):
a happening to some woman in China. I think that
was frightening, And it was a picture of a spider
looking out of the woman's ear canal right, yeah? Yeah,
but Emily's if people haven't heard this story, it was
I think it was in the middle of the night
or something. She was like, I got this weird fluttering
in my ear and I don't know what's going on
in there. And I was like, well, you know, I
took in the bathroom and trying to light and I
(13:48):
was like, holy crap. And the spider I think work.
Didn't it with the flash flight? Remember like, if you
look at your I don't know, did the did They're
saying yes, yes, okay, so there you go. Well, all
I remember thinking is only I don't want to have
to break this to you, but you have a spider
in your ear? You didn't like chloroformer first? I should have. Yeah,
(14:10):
she was not excited about that. She was not pumped,
but so, well, what was the process for getting it out? Well,
I've looked on the internet super quickly, um to see
how and they said to flush it out and um,
just like a little warm. Oh my gosh, you did
use tweezers. Yeah, And I put the water in there
and it kind of um loosened it up, and went
(14:30):
in there and got the tweezers and I was like,
look at this. How big was it? Oh? I mean
it wasn't huge, but it was It was enough spider
for her taste. Yeah, more than enough, right, dude, it was.
I can't imagine that some people like sleep with vesseline
in their ears to keep bugs from crawling in. Yeah,
like that is a thing. Yeah, I mean people don't
(14:52):
want bugs in their ears. No, but that's taken. I
mean that's just parents severe paranois. I think if you're
sleeping that your muffs are vesselly in your ears, you know,
your moss. I thought about that, you all right? And
number four finally is um, your ear wax is gonna
trap some dead skin and hair cells and basically all
of that junk to carry it back out to keep
(15:15):
it clean. So it sounds sort of counterintuitive to trap
that stuff, but it's trapping it so it can carry
it out. And if you didn't have your wax, it
would just go in there, right, And if you chew
things like celery and you talk, then that your wax
is going to work its way out in a slow
process where all this stuff is cleaned out and you
don't ever have to do anything with it under ideal circumstances.
(15:38):
Not always are circumstances ideal, And we'll talk about how
things can go wrong after this, Okay, Chuck's so ideally
(16:01):
you don't have to ever think about ear wax or
anything like that to brush it off your shoulder, right.
But um, for some people, ear wax can build up
and become impacted, a lot of times it's because people
mess with it, like with cotton swabs on a stick.
You know, you may have seen the advertisement on the
Big Game. You're just called cotton swabs, right, yeah, okay, Um,
(16:24):
so when uh, if you use that, a lot of
people use those to clear out their ear wax. Right,
you're supposed to know it's doing the exact opposite, because
your ear wax is um created and moves from the
outside third of your inner ear um. When you rub
(16:44):
cotton swab on it, you're actually pushing it in further
than it's supposed to be and it it can't get
out is easily there. So what you're going to do
eventually is have ear wax build up. Yeah, And it's
it's so hard to get people to not do that
because is it's so um rewarding when you get out
of the shower and use that swab and you get
(17:05):
that orange kunk and you're like, oh man, I'm so
glad that's out of my body. But it's it's got
a purpose. Leave it there. You're supposed to leave it there.
Plus there's I mean, using cotton swabs can lead to
other kinds of dangers, like you can push too hard
and prefer your ear drums. I think it really is true.
You're not supposed to put anything larger than the end
of a football in your ear um. You can also
(17:30):
clean it too much. It can result in something called
swimmers ear. We're basically for people who spend a lot
of time in pool. Their ears are constantly irrigated and
the canal becomes basically free of um of ear wax,
and as a result, bad things can happen. Yeah, And
(17:51):
they say, if you do have swimmers, ere um, put
a few drops of an acidic slightly acidic, not acid
like hydrochloricas. Let's put a gallon drome. What is a
slightly acidic fluid? I wonder, Uh, lady, lemon juice, that's
what I would guess, That's probably what I would do.
I hope we're not advising something that's really nat. No.
(18:12):
As a matter of fact, maybe you should go look
up what you should put in there or go to
your doctor. Yes, but they advised some slightly acidic fluid
in the ear after you swim, and that established re
establishes what should be a normal acidic environment. Yeah, because
you when you strip out that ear wax, you lose
those big four benefits and all of a sudden, your
ear is dry and cracky, and you've got fungus and
(18:34):
bacteria growing in there, and you get ear infections and
it's not fun. The big four um you and back
to creating a build up of ear wax, you get
what's called ceramon impaction, and that is when like you
have a bunch of ear wax pressed against your ear
drum and it can result in all sorts of stuff
(18:55):
like headaches, nausea, ear aches, coughing for some reason. Um,
and that can be from using Q tips. People who
use hearing aids run into this a lot. Uh. And
when your ceremony becomes impacted, you have to go to
the doctor. That's right. Which my sweet wife had to
go to the doctor when she was a little girl
(19:16):
because ear wax impaction. Yeah, and uh she said it sucked. Well,
when you go to the doctor if it comes to that, Um,
they're gonna have quite a few techniques that could use. Um,
you're syringing is one of them. And then comes painful.
It does. I don't think it is, though. I bet
it's actually quite a relief. Yeah, that's not how I
(19:37):
hear it. Really is it painful? Yeah? Umi says it
really is not fun. Well, I didn't know if that
was like a five year old Umi or well yeah, yeah,
but even as an adult she remembers it as not
being very fun. Is Paddington Jumi? Maybe that's why she
had such a reaction. Maybe, Um, they'll use other instruments.
Sometimes you use a microphone or I'm sorry, a microscope.
(19:58):
That'd be weird to magn to find the ear canal.
They shout into it to shatter your ear ax. Um,
and some people have a more narrow ear canal, or
if you have a perforated ear drum or something that
can be a problem. Um. Basically you want to go
to a doctor. You could try some home methods like
(20:20):
peroxide or maybe mineral oil. Yeah, apparently warm mineral oil
kind of breaks it up a little bit. Yeah, I
used to. That's one of my most pleasing memories as
a kid when I had ear aches, as my mom
would like heat up mineral oil and put in my arrows.
But that was nice, felt really nice. It's very warm.
And when for some reason, I like the feeling of
(20:40):
water closing my ear, like when I get into a pool.
Oh yeah, I'll but probably because of that. Yeah maybe,
so I didn't think about that. Do you like that
or what? I just you just like crawling into the field.
Why is Chuck just floating in the pool like a baby? Um?
I no, I've never had much of an affinity for
(21:02):
water in my ears because some people hate it. I
don't hate it. I don't like it. Yeah, And like
you know, I'll bang on the side of my head
if it feels like there's like a drop of water
in there. Does that work? Uh? It can not always.
I think normally the water just has to dry. Sometimes
I get dizzy in my head, hurt. I used to
see when I lifeguarded. I would see swim team members
(21:23):
do that though, and I was always like, I don't
know if that just doesn't seem right. Once in a
while it does and it just goes and all of
a sudden you can hear normally. Again. Interesting. I didn't
see the reason for this though, but they did. Um
in this one article I saw have caution people against
ear irrigation if you had diabetes. What? Yeah? Why? I
(21:47):
have no idea. I meant to follow up on that.
So we don't know what drugs cause an increase in
ear wax build up, and we don't know why if
you have diabetes you shouldn't do ear can irrigation. I
don't know. They said not to use irrigation if you
have a perforated ear drum. Yeah, I get that tube
in the ear drum A weekend immune system or diabetes. Huh,
(22:12):
have no idea. I don't have to follow up on
social media and let people know. Um, But they do
say if you do want to clean your ear. It's
not like you can't clean your ears, but just wash
your external ear with a cloth. But you should never
stick something into your ear canal right, it's just no good.
But it's interesting that the cotton swab businesses huge. I mean,
(22:34):
they've made a if you think about it, they made
I don't want to say it's they shouldn't be selling
these things now, I know what you mean, though, you know. Yeah,
apparently that I couldn't find out how much um people
spend on cotton swabs every year or how many are produced.
We couldn't find out that either. But for two thousand eleven,
(22:54):
apparently Americans spent sixty three million dollars on ear cleaning stuff,
home ear cleaning stuff, and I am doing a lot
of that went to cotton swabs, but also like home
irrigation kits and stuff like that. Yeah, because you can
get those at the drug store, right, and those are fine?
I guess, yeah, I don't know. I mean, everything is
upside down right now. Well, no, I think the irrigation
(23:18):
is fine if you don't fall into one of those
categories that I mentioned, because you're not sticking an object
into your ear. That and then if you don't do
it too frequently to where you're stripping the ear wax
out of your ear right, because it's not like that
thing just replenishes overnight. Guys, I know, and you know
I used the cotton swabs, not a lot, but occasionally.
But I'm not gonna do it anymore. But it is,
(23:39):
like I said, it's it feels so good to get
a big hunk of that stuff out. Yeah, I've never
been into those. Ye, I'm not gonna do it anymore.
I'm gonna tell the only two. I'm gonna burn all
that stuff. All I do is I take some soap
and lather at my hands, do the outside of my ears,
and then, like I guess, I just kind of follow
the contours the inside of my ears. And I'm trying
to remember, like do I go into my ear canals?
(24:01):
And I think I intuitively stop with your fingers, yeah,
and about the outside, so I don't really go into
the ear canal and then rinse it out and get
off and get out of the shower. And then now I, um,
I moisturized my ears afterward, is the last step. That's great. Um.
The other thing too, that they of course you should
(24:22):
never ever do. Like cotton swabs is one thing, but
like a car key or bobby pin or like a toothpick,
what is wrong with you? I don't know that you
should never ever stick something like that in your ear
because you're just asking for trouble, big trouble. Um. All right, Well,
after this break we are going to talk about you're candling.
(24:56):
All right, So Chuck, you teased everybody with ear candling.
Why don't you tell everyone what that is? It's hokem okay,
describe the hokem well ear candling. And a lot of
people don't know this, I think. I think a lot
of folks say, like, oh my gosh, it's the best
thing ever. Um. It is also known as auricular candling
or coning, and it is a procedure once you put
(25:17):
a cone shaped um waxy cone shaped device in the
ear canal um and it's got usually a plate underneath
it between the cone in your ear, and you light
it on fire. And supposedly what it does is that
you stick the thing in your ear and then light
it on fire. Yeah, supposedly what it does is it
(25:38):
creates a vacuum to pull out um impurities. Right because
the flame supposedly needs oxygen, while the flame definitely needs
oxygen to burn, and it's getting its oxygen by sucking
it out of the ear canal through the cone, hence
creating a vacuum. And as it does, like you said,
it sucks out impurities and ear wax and supposedly also
(26:00):
clears your sinuses, um, clears the the plaque out of
your um den drites and all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah.
This one article by Lisa roe uh Rosen, m D.
Said she went to and this was in the nineties,
but she went to a Discovery expo in Atlanta and
said that they had ear candle ers there and one
of the exhibitions and the lady said that ran the
(26:22):
booth quote it cleans the whole head, brains and all
they're all connected, you know, Oh yeah end quote. UM.
And of course it was in Atlanta. I'm like, oh great,
although that doesn't necessarily mean that could be anyway. You're right,
but um, there is there are a lot of people
that think, you know, it's um, it's a cleanse for
(26:43):
your ear, and it does connect to your brain and
it clears your head, and it's a spiritual thing and
you know, they don't know where exactly it came from,
but uh, China and ancient Tibet and yeah, pre Columbian
South America, Atlantis. Yeah, they all are cited as places
where it might have happened. Yeah, no one has any
idea where this stuff originated. Could have been created in
(27:05):
the US and the seventies for all anybody knows. Should
we read some of the things that supposedly helps. Yeah,
we should probably also say if you haven't been able
to tell by now, um, science is thoroughly debunked. Ear
candling um. And this is from that article. There's something
that Dr Rosen and some of her colleagues got together
and kind of step by step took down the idea. Yeah,
(27:28):
there's a list of like forty things. We won't go
to them all, but release vertigo, clears the eyes, purifies
the blood, um aids sinusitis, relieves ear aches, opens and
aligns in your chakra, releases blocked energy, reduces stress, intention
stabilizes your emotions. Um, it does none of that, because
(27:51):
it is it is just been proven to be an
outright not only fraud but dangerous right. So, and here's
why so. Um. The first one is that you can't
pass liquids and gases through an ear drum that isn't
perforated or ruptured um. So it's not sucking anything out
(28:12):
of your inner ear, or your um lymph system, or
your sinuses or your brain. That's where your ears pop
when you're in a plane. Right, If if you could
pass air through there, that wouldn't happen. There would be
no atmospheric pressure going on. Right, So that means that
sticking an ear candle in your outer ears not going
to suck anything out because it can't pass through. That's
(28:35):
that's point one, right, that's point one. Point two is oxygen. Uh, well,
it will create that vacuum and and suck out the impurities. Yeah,
and that is just not true. Yeah apparently and it
and Yeah, doing trials of ear candles, they weren't able
to um create a vacuum in any of them, So
(28:56):
there's no vacuum created, that's right. Uh. There's also uh
the idea that if a vacuum were created, it would
suck impurities out. Apparently after ear candling some of these,
at least one of the same trials studied the stuff
the residue that was found afterwards, like I guess in
(29:16):
the stump of the ear candle. Well yeah, and that's
what people point to because there's all this gunk and
they're like, look at all this stuff that came out
of my ear. Oh my god. Right, So what it
turns out to be is ash from the ear candle
and left over wax from the ear candle, but not
just ear candle, not ear whax, just the candle residue. Yeah,
like they tested the substance that is not cerebumay in
(29:38):
any former fashion. Uh, the what about the idea that
it's safe and effective. I think we took care of
the effective part, but the safe thing, apparently there's a
lot of injuries you can get from it. Um that
you can be burned is one thing. Um, you can
perforate your ear drum, you can get infections. Um, you
(29:59):
can get built up of the candle wax to replace
whatever wax you think you're getting out. Yeah, it could
have the reverse effect exactly. And then um, one woman
actually died from a fire that was caused in two
thousand five from ear candling. I looked it up. She
was doing it, I guess by herself on her bed
and the ear candle fell out of her ear and
(30:20):
caught her bed sheets on fire. And she made it
out of her house fine, but she was asthmatic and
had an asthmatic reaction to the smoke and died. How
did happen that fast? I don't know. I guess she
had some bunch of bed sheets or something of like
some flammable material. Um, there is a company I won't
(30:42):
name the company, but one company that made it. And
if you it came with a seventy five page manual
and a thirty minute video tape. I guess this is
a while ago. It was a video tape and candles
and plate guards and flame retarded cloths and oil and
then uh otoscope. And if you read the flyer with
this kit, it says, quote it supplies you with everything
(31:05):
you need for a safe and effective session of entertainment
right for entertainment purposes only because apparently, I think it
says that Canada regulates those things. Are the US does
those medical devices? If they make any health claims? Yeah,
I think they're illegal in Canada outright. Um, or at
least they were. I'm not sure if they still are,
but um, yeah, the f d A won't even I mean,
(31:28):
you can't make any kind of claim on the box
if you if you get an ear candle at your
little health food store, just read it carefully. They can't
make any claims for entertainment purposes because it's a hoot
to put a candle in your ear and light it
on fire. There was one other thing I came across
in the articles you sent me, Um, and I don't
(31:48):
know if it's true, but it sounds fantastic that if
if you could create a vacuum with an ear candle,
the negative pressure created by the vacuum would rupture your
ear drop them right, which sounds pretty awesome. Yeah. I
don't know if it's true. It wasn't backed up with
a source or anything like that. I couldn't find it
anywhere else, but it's pretty hilarious. Yeah, So don't ear
(32:09):
candle people. And if you write in and say no,
you should see the stuff that comes out. It is
not your ear wax. You should put that stuff beneath
the gas chromatograph and see what you think. I mean,
it's proven. This is like what was we talked about recently,
the crop circles. Man, we got eat from that to
people like no, it's not proven. What was it. I
(32:33):
think it was that Oklowa's crop circles. When we're like, no,
they've proven that. These guys came out and said we
made it up. No, I know what they were saying though,
like it. It's just like we were talking about with ESPs.
Because you can disprove right, right, some of it doesn't
mean that this proves all of it. Except with crop circles.
We should come up with the stuff. You should have
a T shirt. Friends don't let friends ear candle. Yeah, yeah,
(32:56):
I just love your ear wax. Yeah, let it fall
out on your shoulder and let someone point it out
and you say that's nature baby, Yeah, it's because I
eat celery. Uh. If you want to know more about
your wax, you can type the word into the search
bar at how stuff works dot com. I think we
have it done as one word maybe uh yeah, uh
(33:18):
and uh, I said search bar, which means it's time
for listening to mail. I'm gonna call this ice cream
follow up. We've got a lot of good stuff on
ice cream. People really liked that episode. Hey guys, I'm
a student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Started
listening to your podcast just this week, and I'm officially hooked.
I'm listening to your podcast on ice cream. That's really
(33:40):
interesting because I've worked in an ice cream parlor for
the last five summers. Wilson's opened in nineteen o six
and it's still going strong today, one of the most
famous restaurants in Wisconsin. Uh. There are definitely different types
of vanilla ice cream. We use two types, French or
deluxe vanilla and purple vanilla. The label on this other
vanilla is purple. We use purple vanilla for shakes and
(34:02):
malts because it's less rich allows for the flavor of
the shaker malt to be more distinguished. He saw French
vanilla and ice cream cone Sundays and floats, and you
mentioned having root beer floats. Reminded me of an interesting
thing that I've noticed. People often get offended when they
order a black cow and we have to ask them
what it is. That's because almost everyone has a different
idea of what a black cow consists of. Some say
(34:25):
that it's a root beer float. Some say that it's
a root beer float with chocolate ice cream. Some say
it's a coke float, some say it's a blended root
beer float, etcetera, etcetera. Somehow they all got labeled as
black cow. Thanks for giving them me more ice cream knowledge.
I'll actually be able to answer customers now when they
ask what the difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt is?
(34:46):
And that is from Andrea Nelson and she says, ps,
those nasty, cheap cones with the flat bottoms are known
as cake cones. Yeah, I saw that afterwards. Don't order
them ever there. I mean, if you had Jason's Delhi
and that's all they got, oh, is they have the
free ice cream? Right? Huh? Yeah? And that's how it was.
(35:07):
Like the day that we recorded ice Cream and I
couldn't remember the name of the count I think I
ended up going that night and there was cake cone.
I was like, yes, cake cone. Somebody else called it
a wafer cone, but I think that's just wrong. I
see where that would come from, because it's wafer esk. Yeah,
I mean it makes sense, but I've never seen it
called that before, and that's too close to waffle cone, right,
(35:30):
you know, right? It makes people confused. So thanks to
Andrea Nelson for that one. It Thanks Andrea. If you
want to get in touch with us to say hi
or to tell us about ice cream or anything like that.
You can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email the
Stuff Podcast at how Stuffworks dot com, and as always,
(35:50):
you can join us at our home on the web.
They'll look Curious Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
stuff Works dot com. M
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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