Ear infections, kids and adults

Ear infections in kids and adults, holistic approach

According to WHO:

“Antibiotics are not effective against viral infections like the common cold, flu, most sore throats, bronchitis, and many sinus and ear infections. Taking antibiotics can also have harmful side effects for you or your child.”  WHO also warns about growing resistance to antibiotics between bugs, which can ‘seriously jeopardise’ progress made in modern medicine. Medical authorities are trying to educate about that problem both doctors and the public

 

In tradition of herbal medicine arise many ways of quick dealing with the crisis of an ear infection because those infections are a truly horrible problem for anyone to experience. Below a few descriptions of those ways to achieve some immediate relief and also how to prevent them happening.

 

All what is written in this article is entirely suitable for a person to work through themselves, but when things are quite bad, or you just know that you need further help, then visiting Herbalist will be great idea.

 

What to do with an ear infection?

Firstly, prepare 'ear-biotic', instruction provided in detail just below. Then, whilst it is getting ready to use, there are several other actions you can try right now to give some relief:

• Cut an onion in half, place the bottom half in a bowl of very hot water for about one minute. Take the warm onion in a cloth and hold directly over the ear. Combination of heat and mucus relieving volatile oils will give some instant relief.
• After the onion treatment, if the child still wants it, there can be continued relief from pain and pressure by applying the penetrating warmth of a heated water bottle wrapped in a towel to the affected ear. Allow the child to rest their head on the heat source, as long as they want to.
• Do some big yawns. Yawning relieves a considerable amount of pressure from the ears and yawning is ' infectious' so, if your child doesn't know how to make themselves yawn, just start yawning in front of them and see if they catch on.
• Gently blow the nose whilst holding the nostrils pinched together. This helps equalise the ear drum and relieve some pressure, but it must be donevery gently!

 

The Garlic Earbiotic

Treatment described below has been seen by many Herbalists and their patients as highly effective for a great many children with ear infections, also for adults works well. Parents trying this approach nearly always say that it worked faster and better for their child than any amount of antibiotics they've taken in the past.

Instructions

Use three medium-sized cloves of fresh Garlic; peel them and then either chop them finely or put them through a garlic-crusher, into a small container.

add approximately 50mls of Olive oil into a small saucepan, heat  it until it is very hot but not boiling, then pour over the freshly chopped or crushed Garlic

cover this mixture, and allow the garlic to infuse into the oil for at least 1 hour before first use. The preparation will be strong, fresh, and usable for 24 hours. Then prepare fresh batch.

clean and warm a dropper by putting the glass end into a cup of freshly boiled water, then draw up and squirt out the hot water several times before use. Take the clean, warm dropper and draw up approximately 4-8 drops of the garlic oil directly from the container with garlic. If you don't warm the dropper up in hot water, be sure to warm the oil in another way. Do not put cold oil into the ear.

place drops directly into the infected ear. Depending on the patient's age and the size of their ear canal, somewhere from 4 to 8 drops is usually will work well

once the oil is in, turn the head to other side to gravity help the oil soak into the infected area and keep it there for at least 5 minutes

you can gently put a small wad of cotton wool just inside the ear to catch any oil that comes out or you can also use a cotton bud to very gently clean the ear after treatment. Olive oil does not go rancid and will not support further bacterial growth, so it will not matter if some if it remains inside the ear between treatments

repeat this treatment as often as needed. If the infection is very bad, then keep dropping in the earbiotic every hour until things are clearly very much better. The condition will usually improve rapidly, and you can lessen-off the frequency, but you should still keep regularly treating the ear at least once a day for a week after all symptoms have disappeared to make sure the ear infection doesn't come back.

 

Preventing further ear infections

Ear infections, along with other childhood immune related health problems such as asthma and eczema, have greatly increased in the last generation and most cases that come into the clinic are children who suffer from them repeatedly. These children usually have visibly depressed immune systems, meaning a drop of blood taken from their finger and viewed at high magnification through a microscope shows a poor quantity and quality of the health of their white blood cells. Other typical signs of immune trouble include such things as delayed wound healing, high levels of mucus congestion in the nose and sinuses and being more prone to head colds and chest infections than other children. Garlic earbiotic is a great starting point for such cases but it should only be thought of as the first step. You must also take further action to improve overall immunity and where to start is to consider what might be causing low immune health the problem in the first place.

weakened immune system by food allergy or intolerance

Food allergy or intolerances are a leading cause for disturbed or weakened immune health leading to chronic ear infections in children. Many children with recurrent ear infections have turned things around by removing a food that was creating excess mucus and stressing their immune systems. Dairy products have been the biggest issue here, followed by gluten. Any history of asthma or eczema, either in the child or their direct relatives, is a strong indicator to explore the possibility of food allergy or intolerance. Other signs that might be suggesting an underlying allergy/intolerance include a history of sore stomachs, disturbed bowel function, or 'allergic shiners' i.e. dark rings under the eyes.

weakened immune by deficiencies

Some children suffer from nutritional deficiencies without anyone realising it and this can have very damaging effects on their immune system's ability to withstand the common micro-organisms that cause ear-infections. Signs that might suggest deficiencies could be a key issue include a failure to grow and thrive, having a poor appetite, or problems with the health and growth of the skin and nails. Good food must be available for a child to grow well and be healthy. If a child has good food available to them but is just not eating well then consider using a course of one of the great digestive tonics Dandelion root or Gentian. Since ancient times, one of the key uses for this herbs has been for children who are failing to thrive and need to improve their appetites

 

Caused by immune stress

The immune system is a remarkably intelligent, living force within us, that must develop from birth to learn how to deal with, and win against, literally thousands of different microbiological threats throughout life. However, if we meet too many different kinds of stresses in our day-to-day life that impact negatively on our general health, then our immune system may simply be too weak to resist the infectious micro-organisms that are always around us. It is not always easy, or even possible, to remove such stresses but what we can do is nourish and support the immune system with some key herbs. The use of herbal immune tonic for 2 or 3 months has often been seen to be a life-changing intervention for a child who was previously suffering from recurrent ear-infections

 

Perforated ear-drum

A perforated ear-drum is a serious problem with a high risk of serious infection. What can work exceptionally well to aid healing and prevent infection is a variation on the garlic theme above whereby you select a clove that feels like it will be about the right size to fit in to ear, peel it down to that thin, slightly slimy layer that surrounds the garlic corn, then insert the whole thing into the ear so that it covers the perforation. You then put a little cotton wool that has been moistened in alcohol, any strong spirit will do, to make a plug to keep it there.

You can think of this as being like an antiseptic blockade that will prevent any infection getting into the area while the body heals its wound. It is safe to leave the garlic clove inside the ear for up to 2 days, or 48 hours, before removing it, which can easily be done with a pair of tweezers.

Depending on the size of the perforation, just one application may be enough, but if it has not fully healed over then replace it with a fresh clove and repeat the process. There will be some 'goo' coming out of the ear from both the healing process and some reaction to the garlic being there but, so long as there is not real concern that things are getting worse rather than better, which you would definitely recognise because the pain and pressure would increase rather than decrease, then just leave the garlic there so as not to interrupt the healing process and to help the hole heal over.

In case if direct garlic treatment is too strong and is causing irritation and soreness, using garlic infused oil as described above but in either case you should keep some cotton wool in the ear to help provide a kind of 'bandage'.

Note that you should make sure not to let any water get in the ear and you should also be careful to only blow your nose very gently when you need to. Body will fully heal itself from this injury. very careful to only blow your nose very gently when you need to.

 

ATTENTION: All material provided on this website is for informational or educational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of your healthcare professional or physician. Redistribution permitted with attribution.