The most surprising ear infection remedy (that you already have)

I’ve never had an ear infection before this past Christmas, and I think you’ll be surprised at the ear infection cure I found. It’s kind of weird, but surprisingly super effective.

Two weeks before Christmas, my best friend Heather got really sick. She was sick for over a week, and hadn’t cooked, so I told her to come over and I’d feed her the curried apple soup I’d just made a few days before. (See video here.) She came over and nested in my giant bean bag, and we watched Netflix with the kitty and her pup.

A week later, I came down with her bug. We think it was the flu. For nearly two days, I shivered and burned with a 102 degree fever and intense sinus pressure and a splitting headache. When my fever broke, my body temperature dropped to 95 degrees, and I ended up with an ear infection and a persistent thick, groggy cough. No fun.

In addition to Googling “low body temp after fever normal?,” I also searched for home remedies for ear infections. (Turns out a low body temp after a prolonged high fever is, in fact, normal. Just in case you were wondering.)

If you’ve never had an ear infection or you’re dealing with your first one, let me tell you what it felt like. It felt like my ear was hot and itchy and full of cotton. Or underwater. It felt full and muffled. It was painful and gave me terrible vertigo, making me dizzy and nauseous. And all the sinus pressure meant I was still dealing with a headache.

The main thing I DID NOT want to do was spend an outrageous amount of money for a walk in clinic just to be prescribed antibiotics that would nuke my entire bacterial ecosystem, screwing up my immune system further and compromising my gut health for weeks. The last thing I want to do ever is have to recolonize my gut. SOOOO much work. Seriously.

But let’s be clear. I’m not a doctor. And there are certain warning signs of ear infections that you want to pay attention to in case you need medical treatment right away. If this was my child, I might have done something different, especially if they had just had a 102 degree fever for two days. But seeing as it was me, I decided to try some home remedies first.

Something else I should mention is that I had to fly on an airplane home for the holidays in less than 24 hours after I determined I had an ear infection. I definitely wanted to fix this thing fast!

Most common natural remedies for ear infection I found on the internet were:

• Breastmilk
• Equal parts apple cider vinegar and alcohol
• Garlic Oil
• Mullein Oil

Most of these things, they recommend you do 2-3 drops in the ear once or twice daily until symptoms resolve. If you’re a non-lactating human like me, then you’ll be forced to move on down the list. I tried apple cider vinegar and alcohol first. Two to three drops in the ear, then I laid on my side for 10 minutes, then drained it.

It felt the same. Same amount of pain. I had no garlic oil, no mullein oil.

Somewhere else, I read that you can use elderberry syrup in the ear…

But then, I came across an article that said you could use *gasp* URINE to treat ear infection.

So I tried it.

Hey, I’ve already heard about urine being used to treat other types things like foot fungus and acne (weird I know), but at this point, I was desperate and in pain. And urine is also free, remember? It was go time.

If you try this, be sure to only use mid-stream urine. That’s supposed to be the cleanest (according to actual medical professionals, which I am not).

Anyway, 2 drops and 1 hour later, my ear felt AMAZING. No pain. No itchiness. The deep fogginess that had mad my ear feel like it was both full of cotton and underwater, had cleared completely, and I could hear again. My dizziness dissipated. It was truly incredible.

I went to sleep and woke up the next morning and flew to Nashville for the holidays. The cabin pressure didn’t bother me at all.

My mistake came when I got to Nashville and purchased garlic oil and used that to treat the ear for the next 5 days. And the ear got worse. It got itchy again and full feeling.

Today, it was the last straw. I caved. I used the urine trick again, and voila! My ear feels 100% better. No itchiness anymore! I think I’ll do the same thing tomorrow just to be on the safe side. I can’t believe how well it works.

To be honest, I’m a little squeamish about putting urine in my ear. It kind of grosses me out. Not a lot. Just a little. But it worked so well, I felt I had to share just in case you didn’t know about this handy trick! After all, you’ve appreciated my rather forward posts before, like this one about birth control, and this one about periods, and even this one about overcoming vaginal fissures (yes, it’s a thing).

TMI? Yikes. Okay, guess it’s time for me to wrap up then. Later!

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