Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Ear infection

Last Wednesday, my 4 year old started to get sick.  He kept telling me that his left ear hurt but I didn't think much of it because I kept playing and acting normal.  By evening, he was not doing well.  He was crying and telling me that his ear hurt pretty frequently. 

I knew that melaleuca was an oil that is great for ear infections so I began rubbing it all around his ear.  Every 30 minutes or so, I would reapply it.  We did this all evening, even putting it on a cotton ball, putting it gently inside his ear, and then putting a piece of tape over it. 

He went to bed and was pretty restless.  He kept waking up and crying, and I kept reapplying the melaleuca.  We kept trying to decide if we needed to do anything else or just wait to see if he improved.  The problem was that we were supposed to be leaving for a vacation in the morning!  We decided to wait and see what happened.

The last time he woke up was at 1:30.  I put more melaleuca on him, fully expecting to be up again in an hour or two but he slept all night after that, waking up at his usual time.  I was so grateful!!!

I asked him how his ear felt and he said it felt good, and that it just hurt a little bit now.  We were able to finish packing and head out of town.

I told my husband as we drove away how glad I was that we have the oils in our home.  If we didn't, we would have been spending time at the pediatrician's office that morning (or perhaps even going in to the ER in the middle of the night) and then going to the pharmacy to get an antibiotic that would have damaged his gut flora.  I still can't believe that it worked so well and so fast!  We were able to reduce his pain within a couple of hours and help his body to heal.  All without any doctors' or prescriptions and without having to force any medicine into him.  Amazing!!

The time to prepare for those middle of the night emergencies is not when your child gets an ear infection the night before your vacation...it is well before that.  Having the oils in your home, you are prepared for the times when you need them most!

Update: My son happened to have his 4 year well check appointment the following Monday - 5 days after his ear infection.  I told her about what happened and what we used for him.  She said it looked like there was a little bit of fluid in his ear but that it looked like it was healing just fine!