★★★★★
I read all the posts about cayenne, I tried taking a tsp full of it, didn't notice any difference. I, however, remembered that I had a cayenne pepper Herb Pharm tincture (I have a giant cabinet full of supplements). I took about 1 ML or a dropper full, and 10 minutes later my ear started popping and feeling better. I also applied some hydrogen peroxide, natural ear ache oil, which was also helpful. But I noticed the biggest difference from the cayenne.
Alcohol and White Vinegar
★★★★★
Onion
★★★★★
Day 1: Ears itch slightly. I use a dry q-tip to clean/scratch my ear.
Day 2: I wake up with my left ear feeling a little clogged and the right is burning slight. Pain Level is 2 but I know something bad is about to start and we are leaving for a trip in a couple of hours. I pack everything I can think of. I don't ever recall having an ear infection but I had fought it when my son had it 10 years ago. I pack: hydrogen peroxide (3%), grapefruit seed extract, rubbing alcohol (70%), lavender oil, q-tips in a zip lock, advil, net pot and salt. I mix a solution (per label) of Grapefruit seed extract (4 drops in 1 oz of alcohol)
Before I leave, I put a few drops of Hydrogen peroxide in one ear and let it sit with my head on a pillow. It fizzes so much, it comes out of my ear. I flip my head and let it drain. I do the same with the second ear.
For the 5 hour drive, I alternate soaking a q-tip in alcohol/GSE solution and dabbing it in each ear (every 3 hours), and lavender oil (every 2 hours). Pain is about a 7 when touched, hearing is getting worse. I can feel the canal of my ear is swollen. When we get to the hotel, I soak a small strip pf TP with Hydrogen Peroxide and allow it to drip into me ear as before. Again, it bubbles out. A very violent reaction but I do get relief from pain. I feel like I won't get healing without reducing inflammation so I begin advil - 1 every 6 hours. It reduces the swelling by that evening but pain is about 3 and I can tell the infection is not subsiding. I continue this regimen for 2 days
I decide to begin internal GSE. 15 drops in 8 ounces of water. I drink this every 4 hours for 2 days.
Day 3: Pain subsides and remains at 3. Hydrogen Peroxide continues to bubble. I continue the regimen as I did when driving, with q-tips since we are continuing to drive and do things on vacation. I keep everything in a bag with me and always get bottle water so I can mix up GSE. This was a miserable situation but I was not going to let it ruin our vacation. I made sure to only use one end of a q-tip in a particular ear - never to reinfect the other ear.
Day 4: I add using a net pot to my regimen (I happen to have a travel net pot and we happen to be staying in a hotel with a kitchenette so I could boil water and let it cool). I add GSE, in addition to sea salt (1/8 tsp per 1 cup water) to the Neti water per label instructions (4 drops per cup water). I do a net 2x per day. I also begin baking soda regimen (1/4 tsp in water every couple of hours) taken internally. Pain level is subsiding (2 when touched) and hearing is still affected in one ear but improving slightly. I feel like I'm healing so I cut back on GSE internally to 2x/dy, reduce baking soda to morning and night and stop advil, and stop hydrogen peroxide.
Day 5: I'm back home now. By morning, my pain level is back to 7. I was not better. Hearing in one ear is severely diminished. Ear canal seems almost swollen shut. I have to tug on earlobes gently to get canal open enough to allow hydrogen peroxide drops. I immediately start everything back up again, except advil. I want to be able to judge swelling and pain levels.
My ears feel so inflamed, I don't want to make them worse so I decrease frequency of alcohol/GSE, lavender oil and hydrogen peroxide drops to one every 3-4 hours. I alternate to a different one each time.
I come to Earth Clinic and read about garlic oil in the ear. I warm some old and thinly slice one garlic clove. I soak a cotton ball with warm oil and put one in each ear. It is very soothing, not burning at all. I sleep this way.
Day 5: I seem to notice improvement in the morning and spend all day and night with garlic oil cotton balls in my ears. I change the cotton balls morning and night and do hydrogen peroxide drops, followed by the alcohol/GSE drops in each ear (I find this helps to get the ear dry after the hydrogen peroxide)when I change the cotton balls. Pain and swelling continue to diminish but not gone. I take GSE in water morning and night.
Day 6: Morning and night I do hydrogen peroxide drops, followed by the alcohol/GSE drops in each ear. I sleep with garlic oil cotton balls in my ears. Pain is down to 1. Hearing is improving but not back to normal.
Day 7: I wake with pain in one ear (5 when touched) and a swollen lymph node under that ear. This is it. I'm trying one last thing. I look in my old herbal healing book. I take a fresh, uncut onion and cut a little section off. I run it across a microplane grater (any grater will work) until there is a watery pulp (about 2 TBS). I tilt the bowl and press the pull so that a pool of clear onion juice gathers at the bottom. I take a cotton ball and unroll it. I cut it in half and re-roll both sections so I have 2, tighter, more cylindrical cotton pieces. I soak one end of each in the onion juice and shove the wet portion in my ear. I wad up the remaining part on the cotton so it holds inside the ear. I do this to each ear. There is enough onion juice on the cotton so I can feel it running in my ear. There is no burning, and it feels soothing but I do feel SOMETHING...a warming of a sort?
I sleep and wake to 100% pain free and the lymph node is much smaller.
Day 8: I grate fresh onion and change the cotton morning, noon and night. The pain is completely gone, hearing has returned to normal.
Day 9: completely normal ears.
Now, did the onion juice do it? Had I weakened it already? I can tell you that if this happened to me again, I would have all the same things on hand but I would START with the onion juice and only add things, one at a time if I felt like I needed more "punch" to fight the attack. I would not use q-tips unless it was an emergency (like I'm on the subway or something). The GSE internally, really helped me fight it as well as I believe I would have gotten a fever, otherwise. I would use the advil sparingly as I feel like it gives a false sense of healing (maybe use it for kids more and in intense pain).
This was a highly aggressive attack. I feel like I may have had a yeast infection that turned into a bacterial one.
Alcohol and White Vinegar
★★★★★
Cayenne Pepper
★★★★☆
I did not have fresh organic cayenne measured by strength; it was Morton's brand and fairly new, but I suspect it wasn't as potent or fresh as could be had.
Olive Oil and Tea Tree Oil
★★★★★
Coconut Oil
★★★★★
One day after reading about the anti-bacterial properties of virgin coconut oil I decided to put vco drops in my ear several times a day, it cleared in 3 days, so now before I go swimming a few drops of vco will stop me getting an ear infection.
Apple Cider Vinegar
★★★★★
Olive Oil
★★★★★
Olive Oil
★★★★★
Turpentine
Onion
★★★★★
Olive Oil
★★★★★
Dietary Changes
★★★★★
I did feel there was a connection but did realize it till i read a french book on allergies. Ear infections can be caused by milk... same for swollen tonsils.. I have no tonsils anymore.. i wish i had been old enough to stop them from cutting them out...
Anyhow we had free cheese at work.. didnt seem to affect me then one day i wanted milk...
i dont usually cause well like cheese... it contains mucus and is mucus forming... (at the time in camp, i had to eat cheese for protein cause some of the cooks thought pasta was food)
i drank 5 tiny cups like almost those bathroom cups of milk.. then that the evening my eardrums popped. i havent touched milk since. unless to test.where as a cup of chocolate milk made my throat glands on the sides sore...
The only other thing to make my throat swell like that is mcdonalds beef burgers and orange juice.
★★★★★
Iodine, Boric Acid
★★★★★
A cotton bud dipped in Povidone Ointment and then lightly dipped in Boric Acid powder. Gently place cotton bud just a very small way into the ear and then remove the cotton bud from ear. Gently massage back of ear. 2 or 3 applications a day. The Povidone ointment/Iodine clears infection and the Boric acid powder dries water.
Dietary Changes
Turpentine
★★★★★
Source: The New Standard Formulary - Comprising in Part I All Preparations Official Or Included in the Pharmacopeias, By A. Emil Hiss, Albert Ethelbert Ebert · 1911
Medicines for the ear are of two kinds, one for earache, which may be called Earache Drops, Earache Remedies, or Earache Oils, the other being intended for the improvement of the hearing, the latter kind being known as Ear Oils or Acoustic Oils. Of course no medicine will actually improve the hearing when impaired, unless it be due to a waxy concretion present, which may be softened and dissolved.
III Acoustic Oils.
Oil of Turpentine
1 fl. dr.
Oil of Sweet Almonds
6 fl. dr.
1 to 6 Ratio.
One to 2 drops on cotton in the ear.
Deafness generally arises from deficient secretion of wax in the ear. The following remedy is in some cases useful:— Oil of turpentine, half a dram ; olive oil, two drams ; mix, and insert a couple of drops in the ear at bed-time. Oldtime Remedies from the UK
