dragonflyinthesky said:
I wish I could only find something good to keep earaches away.<br><FONT color=#ff00ff><b>Dragonfly</b></FONT><br>
Once upon a time... when the girls had just started in headstart, we got stuck in the earache, doctor visit, amoxicillian, earache cycle. After two months of that I got fed up with it and decided to use an old home remedy. At the first sign of an earache, warm a small amount of olive oil (sold in pharmacies as "sweet oil") to baby bottle temp (a drop on your wrist feels just barely warm). DO NOT MAKE IT HOT!!!! I would set the tiny bottle in a coffee cup of hot tap water for a few minutes. Once the oil is up to slightly warmer than body temp, drop a couple drops of the warm oil in your sore ear, place a bit of cotton ball in your ear to keep the oil in and prevent oil spills. Best to lay down, sore ear up, for several minutes. Repeat as needed. We never took the girls to the doctor for a sore ear after that plus did not get as many ear infections. Like me, my kids are prone to wax build up in their ears. I was told by my childhood doctor to drop a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in each ear once every month or so. This cleans the wax build up out gently. How I did it was to warm up the peroxide slightly (like the oil) and drop a few drops in my ear, keeping my head tilted to one side until the bubbling subsided a bit, place a bit of tissue or paper towel at my ear to catch the excess peroxide/wax when I tipped my head the other way to drain. Repeat for other ear. This worked best to do just before a shower. I would sometimes do the peroxide treatment, hot shower, oil treatment for bad ear infections usually connected with a cold. My kids are now 27 yo and still use the cheap oil treatment for the occasional sore ear. It doesn't matter if you use olive oil, peanut oil, etc. We just always have olive oil, but any light cooking oil will work. You will probably need to wash your hair after a bout of the oil treatments as it can get into your hair unless you can get the cotton ball to make a better plug than I could. I have not tried using the memory foam type ear plugs with the oil because I haven't had an earache in years. Next time I get one, I'll have to try them because I don't tend to keep cotton balls on hand anymore. The ear treatments I mentioned also work on cats and dogs but omit the cotton balls. For humans and pets, you may get a bubble in the ear canal which prevents the oil from getting all the way to the ear drum. Gently rubbing the soft spot under the ear helps work the bubble out. The peroxide/oil treatment is also good for when you have a sore throat and it cause the tube from your throat to your ears to become sore. The peroxide kills the germs and the oil soothes and protects the inflamed area.
I don't care for going to a doctor and will often use home remedies for minor stuff.
Because NM is so dry and I'm allergic to this worthless state (Between the dust allergies and the damned pepper roasting I have bad sinus problems), I have discovered that a regular squirt of saline up my nose helps a lot. A few years back, I bought a small bottle of Equate brand Saline Nassl Spray. Once I used up the contents of the bottle, I washed, sanitized, let dry, then refilled it from large CHEAPER bottles of saline. I like to use saline for my contact lenses. The nasal spray bottle puts out a fine mist. Don't stick it in your nose. Instead hold close to each nostril and inhale as you squeeze the bottle. For first time use, hold the bottle up and squeeze it several times to see how firmly/quickly you will need to squeeze the bottle to get the desired fine mist. I use the saline (one squirt per nostril) almost every day. Keeps my nose feeling good (born with a deviated septum) and has helped keep my sinuses in fairly decent shape. I also take a single 10mg loratadine tablet (OTC antihistamine at Sam's Club) daily. Tablets come in 2pack of 200 count bottles (year's supply). Between the saline, loratadine and hot steamy showers, I have not had a bad sinus infection in several years. I used to get them frequently. I think the saline also helps prevent colds too. I'm pretty sure what I am doing is also keeping the perpetual case of "valley fever" beat down. Every road leading into NM should have a big valley fever warning on it. I hate this state. It makes me sick. Really, it makes me physically sick. I have never had 24/7/365 "allergies" like I have had since we got here (all symptoms go away when I get out of the valley and when we moved to Corpus Christi that one winter). When the dust starts blowing (almost daily occurance), the loratadine and saline spray is the only thing that helps. If I forget to do those two things, My sinus get packed, nose runs and I get that horrible sinus headache. This is what is working well enough for me to keep working until we have enough money saved up to leave here. Perhaps it can help someone else as well.