The dreaded ear infection is one of those things that can really disrupt your baby’s sleep. Worse you don’t know your baby has an ear infection until you visit the pediatrician and they take a look into those little ear drums and announce that your baby has a double ear infection. There could be fluid in the ears or the swelling and redness that signifies the early stages of an ear infection. Often times we are so grateful to finally find out what is wrong and we go on with our happy life with the prescription for antibiotics. Antibiotics are not ideal but parents are mostly fine with using them if they work. Meaning the ear infection goes away and does not return. Now what happens if your child gets ear infection after ear infection. The cycle can be ugly and difficult to break!
IF your child does suffer from frequent ear infections you would typically get referred to an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat Specialist) who would recommend tubes to help the ears drain and reduce the number of ear infections. This seems to help but it is still something your child would need to be put under general anesthesia in order to achieve. Soo now your thinking what else can be done for an ear infection?Are there any natural home remedies that can help?
First I want to be clear I am not a medical professional and what I am offering is not medical advice. The list below is from me as a mother with a child who had non stop ear problems from age 1 to almost 3 years old. These are the ways that I personally dealt with the ear infections.
How to Naturally treat an Ear Infection at home:
1 Ear Oil
Olive oil and garlic are a great way to bring down inflammation quickly and tackle the infection. In the early days I did make my own which in theory is easy but as a parent with little time it is an extra step as it needs to be made every 2-3 days and warmed up.
Simple olive oil and garlic recipe:
- Chop 1 small clove of garlic and mix into 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
- Warm up the oil and garlic. I warmed it up holding the tablespoon with the olive oil and garlic over a candle flame.
- Remove the garlic pieces.
- Allow it to cool down to room temperature or slightly warm. IMPORTANT: never put anything hot in the ear. Test it on your wrist or in your own ear first.
- Stores well for 3 -4 days in the fridge but must be warmed to room temperature each time.
If the above sounds like too much work not to worry. I quickly switched over to St Francis Ear oil and it has been a life saver. Its readily available at most health food stores and you don’t have to do anything special. Just 1 to 2 drops in each ear. This blend has the following ingredients: MULLEIN , CALENDULA , GARLIC , ST. JOHN’S WORT & NON – EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL. https://well.ca/products/st-francis-herb-farm-ear-oil_83887.html 
During the first 1-2 days I would do the drops every 2-3 hours in both ears. Regardless if one or both were infected. This also included the night if my child would wake up from ear discomfort we would do another drop. After the initial painful days are over you can go to 3x a day and then 2 until you feel it is not needed. Roughly a total of 7 days in my personal experience.
2 Colloidal Silver
Enter colloidal silver… this was a game changer for us. Yes the ear oil did work very well but took days to handle. My son was a stickler with anything I tried to do to him. So putting a drop in his ear required a lot of work. With the Colloidal silver I only needed to do this 3x a day first day and taper down to once a day quickly. In fact many times after the first day I would just do a drop before bed and that seemed to be enough.
Why does it work. Collidial silver is antibacterial, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory. Its also nice to have a bottle on hand for some other uses such as pink eye, colds and cuts/scrapes.
This is the brand I use. Sold in most health stores and on Amazon.
https://well.ca/products/sovereign-silver-bio-active-silver-hydrosol_20435.html
3 Homeopathy
I will admit I knew nothing about homeopathy before children. Now I love it. It has been consistently the easiest thing to administer to babies and toddlers in acute situations and it works! I will keep it simple for this post. There are 3 top remedies that are my go to for ear infections.
Pulsatilla 30- this is a great ear pain remedy for when a child seems unaffected during the day but has ear pain at night. Also there is a “Pulsatilla” personality usually this child is more clingy and loves to be cuddled and given sympathy when ill. They tend to be whiney and are temporarily relieved by being rocked.
Belladonna 30 -Great pain, redness and inflammation are hallmarks of this remedy. Often the child will have a red ear or flushed face, the head may fill hotter than the rest of the body. It can also accompany a fever. This remedy is used mostly for sudden onset of symptoms. The right ear is often more affected than the left.
Mercurius Solubilis 30 – For more chronic re-occurring ear infections. Key symptoms swollen lymph nodes, also includes drainage from the nose that is thick, drooling (more than usual), ear discharge, possibly accompanied by pain in mouth and throat.
All the symptoms above do not need to match exactly. Usually I go with the one that fits the picture best and there are other remedies that can be helpful as well. I normally dose 3-4x a day for the first 2 days then after 2x a day for 2 more days. If you want to check out more remedies that might match here are a couple of good sites for descriptions: https://www.homeopathycenter.org/homeopathy-today/8-great-remedies-earaches and https://www.drhomeo.com/homeopathic-treatment/homeopathic-medicines-ear-infections/
Other Remedies:
There are many other remedies that can also help. I choose to keep this simple to the top 3 that work for us every time. Getting to the root is also key. My son had a lot of sinus issues which meant that every time he got a cold we would start him on either a drop at night of the St Francis oil or the Colloidal silver until he was over the congestion. This did 2 things; 1) it prevented the cold from turning into a ear infection 2) It helped us keep him comfortable and off antibiotics which he does not respond well to.
Trouble Shooting/Questions:
What if the pain is unbearable and the ear oils take some time to work? Belladonna is very helpful for very painful ear aches. If you don’t have that handy I have used Advil and found that if I used the Advil while being consistent with the drops I really only needed to use it for 1 day.
What to do if every cold becomes an ear infection? This happened to us for a while. It was stressful and we stayed on top of it by being proactive. We noticed that my son had a predictable series of events. He would get sick and seem to get better but then he would get very congested and the congestion would cause ear pain and lead to ear infections. What we did was when he started to get congested we did the ear drops. In addition we also used tea tree oil (2 drops in teaspoon of coconut oil) and I would massage this around his ear from the front lobe, behind his ear and down his neck on his lymph nodes. This was soothing to him and helped with sinus and fluid drainage.
Hope this helps and feel free to leave comments on what has worked for your family.