Ear Trouble

I have learned a lot this week about ears and ear infections.

It all started last Saturday (a week ago) when I woke up and my ear hurt. I didn't think it was a big deal, so I just dealt with it. The ear ache seemed to go away as the day went on.

When I woke up Sunday, it hurt terrible. That morning, as I was picking Christian up, he hit it and I wanted to scream. My ear was swollen and VERY tender. I decided to head over the Quick Care at HyVee to get it looked at. They determined that it wasn't quite an ear infection, but since my ear was so swollen and tender, they were going to treat it as one. They said it was not red at all on the inside. I gave them my money and I was off to the pharmacy for some antibiotic ear drops.

They had told me that if it wasn't better within 3 days to go see my regular family doctor. Ok, I can do that!

Well, Wednesday came around and it still hurt. Still on Thursday, so I called this new chiropractor that I have been seeing. I wanted to ask her what she thought and maybe she could do something more natural. She said she wanted me to go back to my family doctor since they had my information from Sunday and they knew what antibiotics they had put me on.

So I called up my doctor and guess what? My doctor no longer works there! I had just switched to her too! So I called my chiropractor back up and made an appointment for Friday. I knew this would be a whole lot cheaper and I would probably get a real answer (I am soooo frustrated with the medical field right now!)

I went in and the guy doctor that works there (they are a husband/ wife team) took a look at my ear and said that it was not infected, but my ear drum was inflamed. My ear was still a little swollen and a little tender. He said that ear infections are usually caused by a virus and most doctors prescribe antibiotics for them. This is why a lot of kids have reoccuring ear infections- antibodics don't work on viruses!

They assumed that since my ear still hurt on day 5 that I had a virus. They said that they had a remedy that I could try, so I went for it. The doctor actually had two suggestions and they both involved garlic! Obviously the antibiotics didn't work and I am trying to go more natural in some things, so I listened!

The first solution was to take a pill of 600 mg of garlic each day. She (I was working with the lady dr. at this point) said that garlic is anti-microbial, anti-viral, and just good for your immune system, just like vitamin C and zinc. Her other suggestion was to go to the store and buy a clove of garlic, mash this up, and then combine it with oil. I was supposed to heat this up for a short amount of time and after it cooled off, put some of this solution into my ear. The point here was to put the garlic right where the problem was. I took her up on both offers and have been taking these garlic pills and putting garlic in my ears for the last 3 days. Needless to say that after I had bought all my stuff to make the eardrops, I found out that there were garlic drops available at Whole Foods! GRRRR!!!

My ear is feeling a lot better, but is it because of the garlic? I'm not sure. Was I on the mend anyway? I could've been. Who knows for sure!

The doctor said that this solution is also good for kids. I asked her why so many kids have reoccuring ear infections and get tubes and her response that it was all about money. She said if doctors would tell their patients about this garlic solution, the kids would be in a lot less pain and probably wouldn't have to get tubes put in their ears. She said her husband had 7 sets of tubes put in his ears when he was younger and now he can't hear very well because of all the scar tissue.

I just found this very interesting and hopefully soon I can be done with garlic! It's really not that bad. It was cheap and it worked a whole lot better than those antibiotics!