"Is This Halal?"

"Nadirah, is this ear plugs halal?"

I was taken aback when my patient asked me that. But I quickly thought over and said "I'm not sure but it should be, because it's made of silicone".

The patient was still skeptical, so I reassured her and said that there would not be any haram content inside the ear plugs, and she accepted that.

Honestly, I was taken aback because that was the first time a patient ever asked me that. All this while, I've been assuming that everything that I do is halal, never once questioning the material used. And that's a problem actually, especially with food these days. There are so many eateries, F&B outlets that is cheating consumers outright by putting up phony halal logos on their walls. And we Muslim Malaysians assume that every restaurants/cafes in this country is halal, except for those with obvious "bak kut teh" in the name of their shop. Nowadays, I seriously admit I can't be too sure with what I eat :(

Back to Audiology. So I talked this over with a colleague, and she made me think of the teachings of Islam itself. It was discussed that in Islam, as long as we don't consume pork and alcohol, then it is still halal. Meaning you can wear a pig skin lining shoes for all the care in the world. I was really skeptical of this, because this is also the first time I'm hearing it. So any wise ones, please do respond to this post if you beg to differ, or acknowledge this teaching.

Of course I googled for silicone, and rest assured everyone, there's nothing that says haram from what I read. Alhamdulillah.

Another first would be selling the ear plugs itself. The patient requested for them because she has perforated eardrums in both ears. Since she's not keen for surgery, the ENT Specialist advised her to make sure that her ears are dry all the time to allow the eardrums to heal on its own.

When I received the ear plugs from the vendor, they were really cute! One was in bright pink, while the other was in blue. It's something like the ones in this photo:


(pic taken from http://www.allamericanmold.com/html/swim_wear.html)

The patient also feedbacked that it was comfortable as well, no issues with it at all.

I also discovered that besides for protection from water and noise, you can use ear plugs to protect from snoring! LOL. I guess there are a lot of bed partner snoring at really high decibels or the company wouldn't have come up with that.

Cool stuff :)