The cauliflower ear seemed to be very nice.
After catching a cold from her 19-year-old son, Bravo personality Brandi Glanville decided to try a TikTok-approved decongestion method recommended by her other son, 22.
This step raises questions.
In the last episode of Brandi Glanville Unfiltered Podcast.The 53-year-old said she got a clove of garlic so stuck in her ear that she needed an urgent care doctor to extract it. On Easter, she said, “I didn’t do anything because of the garlic in my ear.”
Her eldest son allegedly said he successfully cleared congestion by putting garlic cloves in his nose, something Glanville said she tried first. She decided to move it to her ear after her nose – which had recently been treated with a laser – started burning.
But the allium in her ear didn’t come out when she went to look for it.
“Every time I tried to get it out, it got worse, and it did To go to urgent care “The next day and take it out,” she said on the podcast.
Ear, nose and throat specialists don’t like what they hear.
When asked if putting cloves in the ear was a legitimate and safe way to treat congestion, Dr. Madeleine Herman, chief medical officer at Sinus Center and ENT specialists From Houston, he said: “No, not at all.”
“Foreign bodies in the ear canal can cause infections or worse,” she told the newspaper. It can perforate your eardrum or even damage the bones that allow you to hear.
“There’s a reason the ENT tells you not to put anything in the ear canal, including cotton swabs.”
Garlic also consists of active compounds that can cause chemical burns when applied to the sensitive skin lining the ear canal, she said.
The original garlic “hack” involved placing garlic cloves in the nose. Many viruses now TikTok videos It shows in gruesome detail a stream of mucus flowing from the nostrils when the lobes are removed. (Watch at your own risk.)
This volcanic effect is likely the result of one of two facts, as Herman explained to The Washington Post in December: Either “the mucus collects behind the blockage and simply comes out all at once,” or that the garlic has irritated the nasal lining so much that it “results in increased mucus production as the nose tries to expel the irritant.”
But there is no evidence to suggest that this method can actually treat sinus congestion.
This does not mean that garlic cannot be therapeutic when used correctly.
Dr. Ryan Salvadoran ear, nose and throat surgeon at Sinus and Snoring Specialists, acknowledges that the use of garlic in traditional medicine goes back thousands of years – to Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Chinese, Indian and Jewish cultures -And it continues today.
“Recent studies have actually shown that several compounds found in garlic (allicin, S-alkyl cysteine) have significant antimicrobial effects, especially when applied topically,” he tells The Washington Post. “As such, garlic can be effectively used to treat mild external ear infections and has shown just as much effectiveness as over-the-counter ear drops for this purpose.”
But putting a clove in your ear to soothe congestion is a fool’s errand.
“The principle is that the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory compounds found in garlic, when placed in the ear or nose, can be used to relieve sinus pressure,” says Salvador. But “there is little evidence that such treatment would be effective.”
Because of the structure of the ears and sinuses, there’s nothing you can put in your ears to treat congestion, which is “caused by swelling of the Eustachian tube, which drains into the back of the nose,” Herman says.
She adds: “It is separated from the ear canal by the eardrum, so placing a clove of garlic in the ear canal will not affect the middle ear or the Eustachian tube.”
Dr. Andrew Spector, Otolaryngologist Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics In Manchester, New Hampshire, this phenomenon is called “right church, wrong office.”
“It makes absolutely no sense that putting something in your ear would help with sinus or nasal congestion, let alone ear congestion,” he said.
“Even if someone had a hole in their eardrum (which shouldn’t happen naturally), the garlic wouldn’t get from the ear canal through the Eustachian tube to the back of the nose and into the sinuses. In other words, the garlic couldn’t get into the nose or sinuses.”
The important thing to do to treat ear congestion is to reduce the swelling of the Eustachian tube. Nasal steroids such as Flonase or Nasacort and short-term use of decongestants such as Afrin or Sudafed can help.
If all else fails, it is recommended to book an appointment with an otolaryngologist who can prescribe other medical treatments, or in more severe cases, ear tubes.
Gentle massage on the outer ear and ear canals can “promote the opening of the Eustachian tube and relieve pressure on the ear,” explains Salvador.
Ultimately, there are many proven ways to relieve ear congestion, and garlic for the brain is not one of them.
But for now, at least for dozens of TikTok creators, doctors’ advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears.