How We Avoided Antibiotics – Escape From the Pink Stuff
This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission. Learn more in our disclosure.
Fever, ear pain, waking in the middle of the night. What do you do?
Worry.
This past week, our youngest had a really rough time. Really rough.
He'd had a virus (it's been a really rough winter and early spring with viruses, hasn't it?) and seemed completely recovered. Then suddenly one night, out of nowhere, he started complaining that his ear hurt. He even started crying, then got a little more upset, and said, “I wish I were an animal — because then I wouldn't have to feel this.”
When we explained to him that even animals feel the pain he said, “Then I wish I were a brick.”
No kidding. It was funny and I turned my head and laughed, but I was aching inside wishing that I could have taken the pain away from him.
I tried one natural remedy, knowing that I couldn't do much else for him besides dose him with artificial color-laden pain reliever (I didn't give it to him) — and rocked him to sleep. He fell asleep fast and slept all the way through the night, so the pain must have subsided quickly. Thank God. (Otherwise, I would have given him the pain reliever while wishing I'd bought the dye-free kind :-(.)
The sight the next morning was pretty hideous–dried blood coated the inside of his ear and came down his earlobe a bit. His eardrum had ruptured.
I checked the internet, looking for answers….nothing much to do but wait for it to heal and get his physician to look at it.
Called the doctor. Left a message and waited for the return call.
But mom wants peace of mind that her baby is OK and isn't going to end up deaf.
My “baby” had a low grade fever that came and went. He was pretty wiped out. So I fought it, with the strength of a Mama Bear who was waiting for the doctor and knew that mostly earaches pass on their own without medications.
Why the fuss? We all know about the problem with over-prescribing antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. My mom, bless her heart, gave me enough antibiotics for the entire state of Michigan. And then some. That's a lot of why I now deal with the health issues that plague me. My kids have likely inherited my weaknesses, so I seek to strengthen their bodies as much as possible.
I contacted the natural medical practitioner that we are working with on our family's health. She recommended using a lot of two Chinese herb blends Yin Chiao and Coptis Purge Fire that apparently help the body deal with illness.
But they taste icky. Really icky. I tried to cover the taste with carob, stevia, and other sweeteners, but my little one cringed when he tasted it and could barely get it down. Ugh.
We fought the bug for 2 days. And it appeared that we had won.
Until the dreaded fever returned and spiked to 102.
Onto the doctor's office. And got — the script. The doctor said it was up to me what to do–and he was fine if I decided to see where things went in the next day or two.
So there we went–onto the grocery store pharmacy with a sick kid in tow and a 30 minute wait for something that I didn't even want. But it was Friday and you know what that means — There I would sit, vulnerable over the weekend to maybe have your kid's fever hit 103 and have no antibiotics. No thanks. Better to be safe than sorry.
Home. My son fell asleep sitting up on the sofa while looking at a book.
One long nap.
Some prayers and some worrying.
Tried the Chinese herb sludge again. No way was he taking that.
Mind racing—how can I help him without the meds? I tried one more thing: HOMEMADE SALINE WASH with a drop of colloidal silver and a drop of grapefruit seed extract.
Offensive stuff came out of his nostrils. Lots of it.
Next morning, same nose rinse. The same stuff came out. Very unpleasant–but to this mom's eyes, there was something beautiful about this yucky mess. (Amazing what bodily fluids we can handle when they are our child's, isn't it:-)?)
Fever — gone.
Mom — relieved.
Child — better.
Pink bottle — unopened.
One small victory for natural mothering.
Other health-related posts you might be interested in:
– Natural Autism Support – and the Best Therapy Ever
– Special Needs Children – a Sign from God
– How a Mercury Filling Almost Took My Son's Life
– Could You Have Heavy Metal Overload and Not Know It?
How Have You Successfully Avoided Antibiotics?
absolutely! I have a book you will have to look up called “the ABC Herbal” by Steven H. Horne that a friend gave to me. This is where I have gotten a lot of my garlic info – among many other things! He says garlic is good for “respiratory problems, sore throats, colds, fevers, abscesses, and injuries with excellent results”. In the book it also says that a nurse who worked in a hosital growing bacterial cultures took a petri dish with a very powerful strain of bacteria and set a peeled clove of garlic in the center of the dish. It took 2 hrs for the garlic to kill the bacteria. It took 8 hrs for the most powerful antibiotic the hospital had to kill those same strains of bacteria! I try to always keep garlic in my kitchen – for the bigger kids and mom and dad, I crush the clove and cover it with honey on a spoon – it has cured every sore throat I’ve had since I learned of this remedy! When someone starts to get a sniffle, a few spoonfuls of garlic throughout the day will cut the cold durration in half. For my little guys, I just squirt the oil into their mouths….they put up with it! Too much will cause a belly ache so be careful – a few spoonfuls are no problem though. There are plenty of garlic pills out there, but I find that garlic the way God made it works the best and is the cheapest! When my babies get sick – I rub it directly on their feet – stinky but effective! Garlic oil on the chest helps coughs as well – if you can stand the smell 🙂
In the past I have bought garlic oil from Nature’s Way through vitacost – its relatively cheap. I have since saved the bottles and now make my own. I heat olive oil and add a chopped garlic clove to “steep”. After several minutes, I strain it through a paper towel into one of my recycled bottles. To heat it before droping it into little ears, I fill the dropper and hold it under warm water for a few seconds…works like a charm 🙂 Thanks for the breastmilk tip – I will have to remember that for future use!
Thank you!! One more question if you have time….does the garlic oil have other uses?
Thanks! I bookmarked iherb.com to check it out! 🙂
Where do I find grapefruit seed extract?
Health food stores carry it, but you can save a lot of money at online stores. I shop regularly at iherb.com and luckyvitamin.com. You can get $5 off your first order at iherb using code: .RUR466. They have a lower free shipping threshold as well. Grapefruit seed extract has a LOT of uses. It is great for yeast issues as well.
Adrienne – I am so excited to hear about another remedy for earaches! I use gse and colloidal siver, but have never put them together for a nasal rinse – great idea! I wanted to share another tried and true earache remedy at my house – good old garlic. When anyone complains of a soar ear, I immediatly have them lay down and I put a couple drops of warm garlic oil in their ear (not to be done if the ear drum has burst!) Then, if the child is old enough, I make them keep a garlic clove in their ear like a hearing aid for a couple of hours. (large enough so that it does not get stuck in the ear, small enough to stay in for a while) We have never had an infection last more than 12 hrs! The last eisode we had, my son’s ear was very red – but not infected yet. It took 2 drops oil right at bedtime (which is when we finally got home so I could treat it), a clove in his ear, and straight to bed. Next morning, I asked him how his ear was – he looked at me funny and said “its normal, why?” Ahh – 6 year old boys…..! Congratulations on avoiding the pink stuff! 🙂
I have heard of this too — can you tell me where you get / how you make garlic oil?
When it’s an option, breastmilk is also an amazing way to deal with infections of all kinds — ear, eye, etc. God really gave us some good tools to use. Thanks for the tip!
Wow! That seems like a lot of stress/time/pain/hassle to go through when the antibiotic would’ve cleared the infection up just the same. I’m glad you found something that worked in the end though. 🙂 I cave in pretty quickly when there is pain and sickness involved with the kids. I can say I definitely would have gotten the Advil or Tylenol out. 😛 Good job momma!
I guess that it might seem that way. However, having gone through what I have as the result of antibiotic overuse and knowing the tendencies that run in our family (and from what I have read, kids seem to inherit our weaknesses, even ones that developed since we were born [Check out Gut and Psychology Syndrome]), I am willing to do quite a bit of work to help my kids’ bodies to grow stronger. As I mentioned in the post, the pain was pretty short lived or he wouldn’t have slept through the night. I was sure ready to pull it out…just wished at the time that I had some dye-free in the house :-).
Nowhere did they say it was a bacterial infection, so the antibiotics may not have worked anyway… antibiotics don’t work for colds, influenza, viruses, or any other ailment or infection that is viral based.
That is the problem with doctors these days. Prescribe antibiotics for everything.
I will have to have them CONFIRM (like doing a strep test) that it is actually a bacteria, before I let antibiotics near anyone in my family’s body.
Bravo for you! It is so much worse watching your little one (or big one, for that matter) suffer than to go through the pain yourself. We always try natural/home remedies first. Usually they work, and if not, then you can go the “conventional” route.
My nephew recently had the same thing, and my sister used some homeopathic ear drops. She said they worked perfectly; and she didn’t have to use the prescription she had gotten either. I dont’ remember what they were called, though, or what is in them.
My husband had an ear infection (which usually starts from wax building up in his ear canal) and we looked it up on the internet about how to treat it without antibiotics and such. Found out about olive oil and/or ionic silver. First let me point out ionic silver is the pure form of colloidal silver (colloidal silver is only 10% of ionic silver). You can use ionic silver topically and internally; however it is considered to be a natural, homeopathic antibiotic, so you’ll want to make sure if you ingest it to follow it up with probiotics.
We alternated ionic silver and olive oil. First we put a couple of drops in his ear and then put in a cotton ball to hold it in, then did the a coupld of drops of olive oil held in with a fresh cotton ball. It cleared up his infection, loosened residual wax and he felt better within a day or two. My sister treats both her children with the ionic silver – she’s the one who told me about it first. Anyway, this is just another idea. 😉
Interesting. Do you use colloidal as well? If so, why the difference?
I’ve tried colloidal in the past just once or twice; but I never noticed any difference when taking it. When I saw what ionic silver did, I stuck with it. If I cut myself and notice redness from a possible infection starting, I spray it several times a day with “silver” (short for ionic silver) and any sign of infection disappears and it heals quickly and with minimal scarring. Our whole family uses the “silver” for at least the past 7 years or so. My grandmother lived with diabetes and kept on getting gang-green and open wounds that just wouldn’t heal due to the complications of diabetes and my sister sent her some “silver” and it finally healed her open wounds! A friend of mine had infections in both eyes from very bad allergies and she said a naturopathic practicioner told her to spray silver in her eyes – it cleared up her eye infections. I, personally, have had many issues, cuts, scrapes, ear infections, sinus infections and more and used the silver and healed well with it. My sister takes it internally a bunch, but I only take it internally if I really, really have to…because, to me, it’s still an antibiotic (even though it’s natural) and you need to replenish the probiotics if you take it. They say there are no side effects whatsoever with silver (whether colloidal or ionic silver), but there are cases of people’s skin turning greyish blue from taking far too much of either. I’d be leery of too much of ANYTHING! 😉
I heard skin won’t turn silver using colloidal. Are you sure about that? And I think the risk of the internal silver killing good bacteria is real and I would take probiotics, but the real issue w/ the antibiotics is that you are getting the bacteria used to them and the viruses stronger, which, in my understanding, doesn’t happen w/ natural antibacterial and antiviral agents. Am I correct in that?
I saw a guy on the news and on another tv show with greyish-blue skin – he looked like Papa Smurf, no joke. He said he took a lot of colloidal silver. They ran extensive tests on the guy to see if he was healthy or if the silver somehow damaged his body or skin. The reports came back completely clean – he was healthy, although blue, perfectly healthy. It would have to be quite an extreme amount of colloidal silver to turn your skin, though.
Here are a few of the articles I found that you can look at:
(link removed since post no longer exists on the site)
This second article says he made the colloidal silver himself by putting a piece of silver in water and running an electrical current through it.
(Link deleted by Whole New Mom due to it not working anymore.)
Unfortunately, I do not have access, yet, to any scientific information that can prove whether or not viruses can grow stronger or adapt to any of the natural antibiotics… I think that factual scientific information will come in time if not already. However, it is in my own experiences that your body can adapt to and get used to ANYTHING you put in or on it, so I believe any and all things you take, eat, drink, and apply should be temporary or should be changed up from time-to-time to ensure you get EVERYTHING in moderation. 🙂
@LindaL: you have it backwards. “”For instance, you may have come across warnings about it causing an irreversible condition called argyria, which is when people turn blue.
This is usually caused by cheaper products improperly marketed as colloidal silver, such as ionic silver or silver protein, which became a big issue in Finland.””
“”Ionic silver solutions are products that have silver content primarily consisting of silver ions. Although ionic silver is often marketed as colloidal silver, it’s not true colloidal silver.
Because it’s the least expensive to produce, ionic silver is the most popular product in this category.
The problem? It simply won’t produce the same benefits that true colloidal silver can.””
From https://draxe.com/nutrition/colloidal-silver-benefits/
Thanks for this, Carol. I have wondered about this situation because haven’t there been some cases of argyria even using colloidal silver? That could be the case since the article does mention “usually” as opposed to “always” when referring to this problem. Thoughts?
Well, I do believe that you need to thoroughly research the companies before using it internally. So far, I, personally, haven’t used it internally. My doctors’ office makes it themselves and uses it in diffusers for the office to ’dispel’ germs. I finally got a generator and will be making my own to use in diffusers and humidifiers for my house, Also in cases of health where a nebulizer is needed I would use it there and I do use it topically. But that’s not to say I would NEVER use it internally. I would go on a situation by situation and only take infrequently and in very small doses.
PS: right now, I’m using it to aggressively swish around my mouth for a possibly infected tooth where part of a filing fell out. I add in tea tree oil and oregano oil for help with the antibiotic issue. It has helped me forgo the dentist for 2 weeks now. Eventually, I probably WILL need to get it extracted, but I’m holding out for complete success!
Hope it works for you!
Encouraging and timely! I am battling a sinus infection right now, and am determined to heal at home. I also had way too many antibiotics as a kid, and am now allergic to all penicillin. I’m using the neti pot a few times a day and drinking ACV with water, and eating homemade chicken broth with cayenne pepper and fresh garlic, and hoping and praying it goes away b/c it’s impossible to mother when you’re sick! : )
All that to say I’m glad to hear your story, thank you for sharing. And if this doesn’t clear up for me in another couple days I’ll be trying the silver and gse.
Jess, just a thought — I have found that the saline bottles work better than the neti pots. There is a bit of force behind it that is more than the gravitational pull of the neti pots. Either way, when the saline water flushes into your nose, try to hold some in your sinuses for about 10 seconds and then blow it out. It reaches back farther sometimes to where the infection is sitting.
Hope that helps!
I used to get sinus infections all the time, 2-3 times a year; so I, too, have had my share of antibiotics and was never told to eat yogurt or take probiotics. If I knew better, I wouldn’t have taken them, but I used to get really sick with the infections.
The infections completely stopped happening when I started rinsing out my nasal passages. I agree about the sinus rinse bottle rather than the neti pot. I use the NeilMed Sinus Rinse and they say to suck a little bit up deep into the sinuses and tilt your head to one side, then blow it out… when I say blow it out, that does not mean blow your nose!!! If you blow your nose, you will have ear pain! All you should do is just slightly blow outward without covering either nostril so that you don’t hurt yourself or blow so hard that you get knocked off balance. 😉 Just a word of advice.
Thanks for the tips. Yes, we’ve done the deep sinus thing as well. It really helps.
over 90% of sinus infections are caused by viruses so using an antibiotic isn’t going to help.
ACV with honey in warm water, 3x a day really helps with sinus issues. Colloidal silver, too. And, like many people are saying, saline saline saline!!
Gosh, Adrienne…I think you are braver than me! I can take the pain myself, but if a little one is hurting….
On the other hand…we have gone thru many bottles of the pink stuff when Sam was little…ear infections all.the.time. And in spite of many doses of the pink stuff, the ear infections came back over and over. And he was a totally breast fed baby….I would certainly try to do things differently now. Congratulations!
Not brave, I don’t think. Just scared of all the chemicals. It’s all a balancing act, isn’t it?
I think I would have given in and given him the horrid colored Advil if he had woken up in the middle of the night. But the Chinese herbs help with pain a bit so maybe that is why he didn’t wake up.