Mountainmama (Asheville, Nc) on 07/05/2016:

Day 1: Ears itch slightly. I use a dry q-tip to clean/scratch my ear.

Day 2: I wake up with my left ear feeling a little clogged and the right is burning slight. Pain Level is 2 but I know something bad is about to start and we are leaving for a trip in a couple of hours. I pack everything I can think of. I don't ever recall having an ear infection but I had fought it when my son had it 10 years ago. I pack: hydrogen peroxide (3%), grapefruit seed extract, rubbing alcohol (70%), lavender oil, q-tips in a zip lock, advil, net pot and salt. I mix a solution (per label) of Grapefruit seed extract (4 drops in 1 oz of alcohol)

Before I leave, I put a few drops of Hydrogen peroxide in one ear and let it sit with my head on a pillow. It fizzes so much, it comes out of my ear. I flip my head and let it drain. I do the same with the second ear.

For the 5 hour drive, I alternate soaking a q-tip in alcohol/GSE solution and dabbing it in each ear (every 3 hours), and lavender oil (every 2 hours). Pain is about a 7 when touched, hearing is getting worse. I can feel the canal of my ear is swollen. When we get to the hotel, I soak a small strip pf TP with Hydrogen Peroxide and allow it to drip into me ear as before. Again, it bubbles out. A very violent reaction but I do get relief from pain. I feel like I won't get healing without reducing inflammation so I begin advil - 1 every 6 hours. It reduces the swelling by that evening but pain is about 3 and I can tell the infection is not subsiding. I continue this regimen for 2 days

I decide to begin internal GSE. 15 drops in 8 ounces of water. I drink this every 4 hours for 2 days.

Day 3: Pain subsides and remains at 3. Hydrogen Peroxide continues to bubble. I continue the regimen as I did when driving, with q-tips since we are continuing to drive and do things on vacation. I keep everything in a bag with me and always get bottle water so I can mix up GSE. This was a miserable situation but I was not going to let it ruin our vacation. I made sure to only use one end of a q-tip in a particular ear - never to reinfect the other ear.

Day 4: I add using a net pot to my regimen (I happen to have a travel net pot and we happen to be staying in a hotel with a kitchenette so I could boil water and let it cool). I add GSE, in addition to sea salt (1/8 tsp per 1 cup water) to the Neti water per label instructions (4 drops per cup water). I do a net 2x per day. I also begin baking soda regimen (1/4 tsp in water every couple of hours) taken internally. Pain level is subsiding (2 when touched) and hearing is still affected in one ear but improving slightly. I feel like I'm healing so I cut back on GSE internally to 2x/dy, reduce baking soda to morning and night and stop advil, and stop hydrogen peroxide.

Day 5: I'm back home now. By morning, my pain level is back to 7. I was not better. Hearing in one ear is severely diminished. Ear canal seems almost swollen shut. I have to tug on earlobes gently to get canal open enough to allow hydrogen peroxide drops. I immediately start everything back up again, except advil. I want to be able to judge swelling and pain levels.

My ears feel so inflamed, I don't want to make them worse so I decrease frequency of alcohol/GSE, lavender oil and hydrogen peroxide drops to one every 3-4 hours. I alternate to a different one each time.

I come to Earth Clinic and read about garlic oil in the ear. I warm some old and thinly slice one garlic clove. I soak a cotton ball with warm oil and put one in each ear. It is very soothing, not burning at all. I sleep this way.

Day 5: I seem to notice improvement in the morning and spend all day and night with garlic oil cotton balls in my ears. I change the cotton balls morning and night and do hydrogen peroxide drops, followed by the alcohol/GSE drops in each ear (I find this helps to get the ear dry after the hydrogen peroxide)when I change the cotton balls. Pain and swelling continue to diminish but not gone. I take GSE in water morning and night.

Day 6: Morning and night I do hydrogen peroxide drops, followed by the alcohol/GSE drops in each ear. I sleep with garlic oil cotton balls in my ears. Pain is down to 1. Hearing is improving but not back to normal.

Day 7: I wake with pain in one ear (5 when touched) and a swollen lymph node under that ear. This is it. I'm trying one last thing. I look in my old herbal healing book. I take a fresh, uncut onion and cut a little section off. I run it across a microplane grater (any grater will work) until there is a watery pulp (about 2 TBS). I tilt the bowl and press the pull so that a pool of clear onion juice gathers at the bottom. I take a cotton ball and unroll it. I cut it in half and re-roll both sections so I have 2, tighter, more cylindrical cotton pieces. I soak one end of each in the onion juice and shove the wet portion in my ear. I wad up the remaining part on the cotton so it holds inside the ear. I do this to each ear. There is enough onion juice on the cotton so I can feel it running in my ear. There is no burning, and it feels soothing but I do feel SOMETHING...a warming of a sort?

I sleep and wake to 100% pain free and the lymph node is much smaller.

Day 8: I grate fresh onion and change the cotton morning, noon and night. The pain is completely gone, hearing has returned to normal.

Day 9: completely normal ears.

Now, did the onion juice do it? Had I weakened it already? I can tell you that if this happened to me again, I would have all the same things on hand but I would START with the onion juice and only add things, one at a time if I felt like I needed more "punch" to fight the attack. I would not use q-tips unless it was an emergency (like I'm on the subway or something). The GSE internally, really helped me fight it as well as I believe I would have gotten a fever, otherwise. I would use the advil sparingly as I feel like it gives a false sense of healing (maybe use it for kids more and in intense pain).

This was a highly aggressive attack. I feel like I may have had a yeast infection that turned into a bacterial one.