Home remedies - ear infections

Remember how I said that the boys cold had left me alone? I think I jinxed myself, and in typical me fashion, have ended up with an ear infection and have been feeling pretty lousy.

I have always had dodgy ears. I suffered badly with ear infections as a child and spent a lot of time taking antibiotics and other things to clear them up. I ended up having my tonsils and adenoids removed, having a surgical nasal scrape and having grommets put in my ears. The surgery helped and I was able to get through my teens without another ear infection (just dreaded cold sores which are my other personal problem and I'll tackle in a later post).

But in my 20s, my ears starting to play up again and by my 30s, I was having at least one ear infection a year, every cold was heralded by sore ears and I even had the joy of a ruptured ear drum a few years back.

The trouble is, the last two years, I've been to the doctors with shocking earaches (pain killers don't touch them) and the GPs have told me 'you've got too much fluid and wax buildup, I can't see anything in there' and prescribed 'waxol' (ear drops that supposedly dissolve the ear wax). So, knowing that my ears were actually infected, I would simply live through it, allowing my body to fix itself which was slow and painful. BTW, the waxol did absolutely nothing - it was uncomfortable and didn't clear my ears at all.

After the third unsuccessful visit to a doctor about this, I decided to stop and to take a more natural, home remedy approach.

Just an aside here, as I'm sure some of you are saying 'see a naturopath' (or similar). I grew up only seeing doctors, and never saw alternative therapists. I've since seen a chiro twice, but have never tried anything else. I might one day, but honestly I hate seeing anyone, and other than my biennial 'girl' health check and this ear infection business, I don't even see doctors.

So I've done a lot of research and the number of home remedies for ear infections is huge! People use all sorts of things - coconut oil, garlic infused oil, onion wedges, basil oil and their own urine to name but a few. I could try any of them (maybe not the urine), but found one that sat well with me and decided to stick with it for this infection and see how it goes. This is what I do:

Lovely lavender... {image}

Warm a teaspoon of olive oil and add to it three drops of tea tree oil and two drops of lavender oil. I soak this up on a cotton bud and place it into my outer ear. I've been doing this for an hour at a time, three (of more) times a day.

The best thing about this treatment is that all the ingredients are simple things that I trust and are always in my cupboards anyway. There is also very little chance of doing any harm with this treatment, so if it doesn't work, I'm no worse off and I still have the option of seeking medical help.

So how's it working? Well, firstly, the warmth of the olive oil soothes the ear ache immediately and makes me feel heaps better for the hour it is in. After that, the discomfort is dulled for a few hours (I can tell its time to do it again and the pain starts to flair). After one day, my ear was feeling loads better, after two, the pain was almost non-existent.   I plan to keep this up for a couple more days to ensure all the baddies are gone. It feels like its going to work (I promise a follow up post if it doesn't!).

Once my ears are back to normal, I plan to do more regular ear candling (we started that last year, but not often enough). I'm hoping that through maintenance and home remedies for acute situations, I can care for my ears naturally, without antibiotics and without doctors.

I'm fairly new to this home remedy stuff, but am learning quickly. We're trying a few other things and I'll post on them as we go. Would love to hear your thoughts on this, and any experiences you've had with DIY-ing ear infection treatment.