Ear Infection

Bailey woke up screaming this morning around 6:30. His left ear was hurting him so badly. He was hurting so badly that I actually made a doctor's appointment to see what was wrong. They had an opening at 11:15. I got there at 9:45 because Bailey kept telling me he wanted to go to the doctor cause he couldn't "handle it anymore!" Talk about breaking one's momma heart!! I checked in assuming I would be there for at least an hour ... apparently, checking in that early is grounds to get you in almost immediately.

I couldn't find my homeopathics at first and wound up giving him some children's ibuprofen at 7:30 because he was so miserable. It did absolutely nothing for that baby. An hour later the homeopathics was found and we started that regimen. He was able to fall asleep when using that. Poor little guy was half asleep while he was being examined but he tolerated it very well because he wanted to be there.

He still has a tube in his right ear and it looked just fine. The left eardrum was very red and swollen and she couldn't tell if it still had the tube in or not. She perscribed antibiotic drops and oral antibiotics. I was like, "Um, is there some way you can tell if it is viral or bacterial just by looking?" She just looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language and started telling me the instructions for the medications. What really got me about this was she asked all the ?'s that if you answer yes to means that it is a possibility it's bacterial instead of viral and I answered NO to all of them ... ummmm, doesn't this lead one to believe that it is even more than likely viral? UGH!! If I had $25 I'd go back for a follow-up just to be able to say, see you dumba$$ it was obviously viral - learn something!!! Anyway.....

Per the past difficulties we've had with authorities, I filled the perscription ... yes a HUGE waste of money but at the same time, once you've lived through what I lived through you will do anything to help prevent it from happening again.

So what did I do? I continued to give Bailey the homeopathics for ear pain and took him to see our chiropractor. I spoke to our holistic chiropractor about it and he was so upset over the doctor automatically prescribing antibiotics ... especially after I'm reading their material up on the walls that say 9 out of 10 ear infections cannot be helped by antibiotics because they are viral infections!!!

After Bailey's ajustment, he hasn't complained once about pain and I never had to give him the homeopathic pain meds again. He's been his normal self.

As a side note: He told me that a few weeks ago (sometime after C&T got here) that a green round thing fell out of his ear. He described it pretty well and it was definitely the tube that came out.

Female Infections

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no one wants to talk about but I will. Nope not a yeast infection but one of the other two that are just as common as a yeast infection. In fact all three get mistaken for each other. (I'll get names in here later ... My book is with a friend of mine right now.)

Anyway, I grabbed my Herbal Healing for Women book by Rosemary Gladstar and read the description for each one... found mine and started treating it. I wraped a clove of garlic that I had cut and poked the mess out of in a little bit of muslin and kept that in all day long for three days. I also drank a bit of tea tree oil once during the first day ... I couldn't stomach another dosage of that unless I capsuled it and I don't have the capsules to do so. Then I also picked up some Probiotics and took it for four days. It was gone after the first day and a half ... the next two and half days were for good measure.

Now to get my body the right pH so I don't run into this again.

Madison can Hear!

Madison can now hear out of her left ear again! Thursday evening she was able to hear me talk and whisper by her ear. As of today, she seems to hear normally. Wednesday is her audiology appointment and we'll find out what her true hearing is then.

Updates

Think I'll start with the child I haven't talked about yet - Bailey! There's really nothing to tell, I just wanted to mention that I filled out his forms for tubes surgery today. Oh and I'm putting Garlic/Mullien Oil in his ears. If I had straight mullien I'd use it but garlic won't hurt since it will kill any bacteria, virus or fungus in there. I hope that the mullien gets his tubes to open up and drain that fluid so that he doesn't need tubes. If it doesn't then I'll accept his tubes willingly. I'll know I've done all in my knowledge to do.

Morgan Haley is almost totally scabbed over and her diaper area is soooo much better. She's sleeping thru the night again which is so wonderful. I'm so happy that she isn't itching! She's also starting to eat and drink again :)

Madison's ear continues to improve. She was running a low fever earlier in the morning but it is now gone. She is still having a bit of trouble hearing but from the information I've gathered off of the medical sites, this is indicative of a ruptured ear drum and is normal. I just need to keep her ear protected when we go outside and not let water or anything get in her ear. I think we can managed that! Paul sees no reason to take her in to the doctor so we are just going to wait until her audiology appointment next Wednesday to see what they say. Her ear was hurting a little this morning so I started her on some oral homeopathics I found. This has helped tremendously and I really wish I had found this earlier! Throughout the day, she just got better and better and better. I'm going to keep her on these for the perscribed week if recommends to ensure things go as well as they can. Of course if the rupture is very large she may require surgery to repair it. But that's not something they would know right off and not something I would let them jump to conclusions to in the first days after it happened either. I believe the combination of ear massage and oral homeopathics is what has helped her tremendously today! We are going to keep her out of school tomorrow as well and we'll be leaving for our mini-vacation on Friday morning. We aren't sure what day we'll go back so she will either go back to school on Monday or Tuesday. I can't wait to get back into a normal routine of things!

Ears & Chicken pox

Morgan Haley is doing really well with her chicken pox. Of course she itches quite a bit in her diaper area and on her scalp. I'm keeping her diaper off as much as possible and there's just not much to be done for her scalp. I'm also keeping the anti-itch gel on her, especially throughout the night when she wakes me from rubbing her itchies. The oatmeal baths are a bit different for her. She will not sit down in them. So I take the sock of oatmeal and squeeze it over her - over and over and over and over again. She even lets me squeeze it in her hair which I notices helps her not to itch there for quite a little while. After a little bit she'll try to sit but by the end of the bath she won't even stay in the water for more than 30 seconds. Poor little darling! Morgan Haley won't drink the tea I made her at all (to help with the inflammation, infection and itching). She won't even put it to her lips. All she really wants is some water, a touch of chocolate soy milk and a sip of coke every now and then (1 tsp a day basically). I have noticed that she is nearly completely scabbed over. In fact I started noticing scabs on her by Sunday night. That's quick!
This morning I noticed an infected scabbed blister on her left ring finger. So I called the advice nurse to see what is recommended for it and what to look for. Her instructions were to soak it in warm water, clean with dish soap, and put neosporin on it with a band-aid - then watch for streaking down the finger and hand and a fever. So I washed it in warm water with castille soap and put colloidal silver on a band-aid.
Tonight I noticed a red streak down her finger and thought the worst! She was covered in sticky and there was no way I was running off to after hours care with her all sticky, so I ran a couple inches of water and had to wrestle her in there. Once she got laid down in the water though, she liked it and let me wash her off quickly. When I got her out I was carefully drying the infected area when I noticed there was no red streak anymore! Then I looked at her face and noticed she was slobbering out red streaks from a candy she had in her mouth!!! So it was just candy slobber I saw - Whew!

On to other children - Madison didn't sleep well last night and was complaining of her ear hurting again. It was free and clear when I sent her back to school yesterday but apparently I should have had her wearing cotton in her ear to protect it. It's flamed up quite quickly. I upped the dosages of oil in her ears and was able to get a warm washcloth over it. I also added ear massage. This morning I tried to get her up and ready for school but she was majorly dragging and just seemed off so I told her to go back to bed and contacted her teacher to let her know. Later I noticed Madison felt a little warm, but nothing big. Not until close to bed time did her fever really take hold and her ear really start hurting her. Paul was holding her and she fell asleep in his arms restlessly. Then she stopped and seemed to really rest. I took her temp and it was only 100.4*F. Later Paul noticed something in her ear and I got a syringe to suction it out. It appeared to be the oil I had put in her ears earlier and a ball of wax. I suctioned a little more and all I got was some oil. (Right after this is when I saw the 'red streak' on Morgan Haley's finger! So I thought I was going to need to take two sick little girls to the doc's. It was a wee stressful.)

She woke up later and came to bed with me where she said her ear felt almost all better but she can't hear out of it and she has a bit of tinnitis. I wanted to take her to the urgent care but Paul was the voice that said wait this time. So I will research it tomorrow and keep a close eye on her tonight. Nothing is draining out of her ear. I massaged her ear a lot. When I would stop from my hand hurting or from exhaustion, she would ask me to keep doing it. I'd tell her I had to rest but less than a minute would pass and she'd be asking me to start again. I'd say we did this for well over an hour. When she finally fell into a peaceful sleep I was able to stop and go to sleep myself.

Chicken Pox

Morgan Haley has broken out in chicken pox. I'm making a list right now of things I need to get for her and then heading out to the store. Here's my list and what it's for:

Homeopathic Anti-Itch Gel (self explanatory)
Catnip, Chamomile, Lemon Balm, Valerian root (to reduce irritability and discomfort - I have catnip and I'm out of the other three)
Echinacea root, burdock root, calnedula blossoms, cleavers, spreamint leaves (all for rash relief formula to be taken by mouth to help with the itchies and infection from the inside out)
Slippery elm powder (for oozy sores that won't crust - if we don't need it I can definitely use it other places!)
Oatmeal (almost out and she'll need it in baths for the itchies)

I'll need to buy some raw honey as well since I need to get this cough syrup finished!

Thus Far

I just wanted to get a little blog started for my herb and natural healing learning. My road to herbal healing started in high school when my mom started us on some herbs for continuous sinus problems. I remember the main one being ALJ from Nature's Sunshine. I also got some licorice root (from Nature's Sunshine also) for my blood sugar problems. They both helped tremendously. But that was about it at the time... but it got me started thinking.

Fast forward quite a few years to 1997 when I began another path - the vegan path complete with natural healing. I took a plunge (which is usually never good when it comes to lifestyle changing) and of course jumped right back out. Then I started wading in gradually until I am where I am now. I still have a long way to go but I like where I am, too.

Over the past 7 years I've used colloidal silver to fight off impetigo in a matter of 24 hours and rhinovirus in a matter of a couple of days as opposed to the *minimum* week most kids have these things. I've used valerian to help calm a sick child when they are achy, chamomile for teething, Hyland's Homeopathic teething tablets for teething, lavendar to encourage relaxation at bedtime, valerian to help my dad through a panic attack that was a side effect of the anasthesia he had in surgery, various herbs high in iron for my anemia during pregnancy, oatstraw and st. john's wort to wean off of prozac, eucalyptus to help little congested ones breath easier, peppermint for clogged sinuses, homeopathics for sweat bee stings and sinus headaches, garlic/willow/mullien oil to ward off ear infections, homeopathics to ward off ear pain when there was no infection present, echinacea to boost immune systems, a homeopathic anti-itch gel for the chicken pox, oatmeal bathes for the itchy chicken pox, garlic for a friend's yeast infection plus the anti-itch gel, valerian for a friend with sleeping problems and jumpy legs at night AND I've made my own cough syrup.

Oh there's plenty more than the above but those are just the ones I remember right off the top of my head. It seems like a lot but believe me I've just begun to scratch the surface.