Ear aches
How long will it take to feel normal?
To answer this question, a homeopath will always ask three questions:
How many times did you have this earache?
Did you use medication?
And how long have you had the current earache?
Medication effect
Chronic ear infections were all once a sudden emergency earache usually treated with antibiotics. I know this because when patients are using a curative remedy, typically they briefly re-experience a pain such as an earache that they had supposedly cured with a strong drug such as an antibiotic. In these cases, the ear pain quickly disappears. Some patients remember that they heard stories of earaches when they were a child. Even if they do not remember, curing the ear pain with completely with homeopathy leads to healing of much deeper problems.
If patients have not been medicated for your earache, homeopathy works quickly. When ear infections reoccur before homeopathy treatment, usually strong antibiotics have been used to treat them. This forces an earache to become chronic. That is, without solving the problem, the body was forced to ignore the inflammation and even using homeopathy, it will take more time to help the body to heal itself. Medicated otitis media are like skin problems that are suppressed by ointments. Medications such as antibiotics, steroids etc. push the problems deeper into the body. In the worst case, sometimes the mental-emotional state is also affected. That is, these strong pharmaceuticals encourage the development of other more serious problems.
Duration of the problem
If the problem has been festering for 2-3 months, typically treatment will take several weeks to experience the action of the remedy. Even if the pain in the ear feels like a severe emergency, homeopaths will treat it as a chronic problem and normally it has been medicated. For chronic conditions, the general condition of the patient is investigated to find the curative remedy. Treatment is more rapid after pharmaceutical medications have been discontinued but, slower treatment is possible while using pharmaceuticals.
If a patient has a history of recurrent otitis media, normally he is treated by doctors with antibiotics. Strong medications such as antibiotics work to prevent the body from healing itself. They prevent inflammation which is the body's natural way of healing. Sometimes inflammation can be so damaging that healing the inflamed cells is impossible and they are not replaced either. So, there are conditions where antibiotics may be necessary. If antibiotics are used, even when they are necessary, they will suppress natural healing. As a result, other problems that appear to have the ear infection will happen after the antibiotic use. Discharges from any body part and eruptions from the skin are typical examples. These case histories are difficult for a doctor to identify only because he was trained only to observe the suppression of the problem, in this case, the earache. With suppression, the earache reoccurs or worse more serious problems become chronic.
Acute earache case:
In contrast to the above discussion how chronic illness develops, acute cases do not re-occur. They are not suppressed and they occur for the first time unrelated to other problems. The following is a typical pure acute case that responded rapidly to the correct remedy. The interesting part of the case is the patient's mom had studied homeopathy.
Typical earache symptoms
The curative remedy was Chamomile. When the mother was describing the symptoms on the phone, neither she nor I knew the curative remedy. So her description was much longer than the description below. I have only included information that helped me to find the curative remedy.
Short description of earache symptoms
This 4-year-old boy’s ear ache caused him to cry out in angry shrieking.
THE NIGHT BEFORE: After being put to bed early because of fever, he woke up at 9 pm screaming with pain with his head thrown back and his back arched. To soothe him, the father carried him on his shoulder.
IN THE MORNING, his parents took him to an ear nose and throat specialist and they received the usual automatic prescription of antibiotics. It was late spring, so the temperature was comfortable, but the car windows had to be closed because the cool breeze irritated the boy’s pain. Although he was 4 years old, he still demanded to be carried to the car. Antibiotics did nothing to relieve his pain. The mother had studied homeopathy and knew that homeopathy works in minutes. She was not anxious to continue with the antibiotics, so against her husband's will, she was on her cell phone calling me as her husband drove home.
Parental conflict
Her husband was irritated because he had not slept well. He had insisted that antibiotics from the doctor were needed and when his wife refused to believe that they were the best medicine for her son, he was not happy. While the mother was talking, I was typing symptoms into my computer to calculate possible remedies. A number of remedies appeared so I was looking for a way to differentiate between similar remedies.
Choosing a remedy
The child was chilly, angry, sensitive to pain, wanted to be carried and could not be comforted. If you know homeopathy without a computer, you know the few top remedies for that description.
The logic of a homeopath's mind
After hearing that the boy’s hair was soaked through with sweat, I decided that the remedy had to be Chamomilla. Before telling the mother to use Chamomilla, several remedies passed through my mind.
A lawyer's case preparation
Even if I knew the remedy was Chamomile, like a lawyer building case to take to court, I needed a convincing argument. I realize that the following description sounds like a foreign language to the layperson, but I would like you to understand that homeopathy is very logical. So, I thought, the homeopathic remedy Hepar sulphuricum is also likely to have a sweaty head, but the sweaty head was not enough to make a decision. The head drawn back with pain is a strong vote for Chamomilla. Hepar sulphuricum also wakes up shrieking and is sensitive to cold drafts, and does not want to be touched by the doctor either because he is so sensitive to pain. So, those are not symptoms to make a differential. But, Hepar sulphuricum case would be more recurrent. That is, Hepar sulphuricum is more chronic than Chamomilla. It is a remedy for deeper problems. Remember, this was the boy's first earache. Pulsatilla is a remedy that often has otitis media, but a Pulsatilla child would be sweetly or even unpleasantly whimpering in his mother’s arms. He would not be shrieking. The decision was easy, still, an argument is important.
Home remedy kit used
The mother had brought her homeopathy medicine box with her to the doctor’s office. While talking to me, she gave her son a pellet of Chamomilla and within minutes the wailing stopped and the child fell asleep as they were driving home. The ear pain completely subsided that evening and did not return. The boy was given no more antibiotics.
Chronic treatment with medications
Obviously, timely treatment of acute inflammation saves the whole family from much suffering. Unfortunately, people typically learn about homeopathy long after the damage is done. The good news is chronic afflictions can be treated even while the typical medications are used to control deep-seated pain and suffering. We do not live in an ideal world and homeopathy is developed to deal with that real-life condition. Otitis media is the most common childhood entry to medication dependent diseases.
Personal conflict common to homeopathic case treatment
The mother had described her husband's belief that all good medicine must come from a doctor's office. As a businessman and based on his life experiences, homeopathy did not fit his worldview. The mother had studied homeopathy, yoga and other modalities that conflicted with her husband's worldview. Clearly, worldview and medical choice are connected. From my perspective as a mom, when you are talking about the suffering of your loved ones, results speak with the greatest finality. Nevertheless, the conversations occurring in this family and throughout our society are not necessarily settled by results.