About 4 weeks ago Olivia came down with an ear infection. We took her to Dr. Khaneja, and all of us agreed that we should take a "Wait and see" approach before going the antibiotic route. Olivia didn't appear to be in physical pain, and The Journal of American Medicine (Jama) just published the results of a huge study stating that 80% of ear infections heal on their own without antibiotics. JAMA strongly reccommends waiting 48 hours before starting an antibiotic because most ear infections will begin to heal on their own during this time.So we left Dr. Khaneja's office with the reccommendation of using Oregon Trail ear drops....which are basically garlic and olive oil. Unfortunately Olivia's ear infection didn't heal, and we were then forced to use antibiotics. 1 week ago she was picking at her ear again, and the pediatrician found the same ear inflamed and infected. The ped said that Olivia didn't respond to the 1st round of antibiotics, and would need a second round. I was devestated. The ped said "Now we're going to have to call in the big guns" meaning we had to use a stronger antibiotic. Ack. I understand that western medicine has its place, but I see healing as a circle, and western medicine sees it as a small line, not connected to anything else. I see healing as considering the whole person, and felt that these ear infections were the clue that something bigger is going on inside of Olivia.
This led me to look into ear infections more, and ask some questions. Why didn't her ears heal? What would make an infection come back? The answer is simply fluid accumiliation, and the fluid from the first infection never draining. Any time that water sits stagnet it can become infected. Olivia's ear never drained the fuild. Why didn't it drain? Becuase there was an area of tension in her body that was keeping that fluid in place. How do you release tension? Not through antibiotics, but through healing touch to open up the lymphnodes.
While we chose to go through with another round of anti-biotics, we also had to treat Olivia as a whole person, and realized that there must be some areas of tension in her body that wasn't allowing this ear to drain. Dr. Sears reccommends chiropractic care for ear infections, and I recently heard Dr. Melissa O'Loughlin speak at the October Holistic Moms meeting. She was full of passion, love, and information about pediatric chiropractic care, so I decided to take Olivia in for a consultation. Dr. Melissa is warm and very caring about treating her patients. She treats the whole person, and did most of Olivia's assesment and adjustment while she played. Her touch is very gentle, and Olivia kept right on playing through most of the session. Dr. Melissa found 3 areas of tension, and one area was directly behind the infected ear. Olivia has to go twice per week for 3 weeks. Dr. Melissa takes time to educate her patients which helped me learn alot about the body. Dr. Melissa is chock full of wonderful healing tips, and showed me things that I can do at home to help Olivia's ears remain open and draining.
We are one week into the chiropractic care and so far the results are hard to measure because we need to have someone look inside of her ears. We are going back to the pediatrician next week, and I'm very interested to see if there has been an improvement. What has been encouraging for me is the concept that there is something different that I as a parent can do for Olivia, despite having to put her on antibiotics. I feel hopeful that we have another option, and its a wellness option. The western model has never made sense to me, and it seems to leave out such a big piece of the puzzle. Medicine was created over 2000 years ago, and its roots are in Ayurveda. Ayruveda has an indepth approach to healing, and the Western model chooses to look at only one very itty bitty piece of that pie. I encourage anyone to consider chiropractic, acupuncture, and homeopathy along with their Western Doctor.
People ask if I've noticed any huge changes. When we arrived at Dr. Melissa's office, Olivia had lots and lots of mucus, greenish in color coming out of her nose. The next day she had an 80% decrease in mucus, and all the mucus was clear. She continues to have her cough, but things are very loose and she is expelling clear mucus.
I'll post Dr. Melissa's website on here in case anyone is interested. Thanks to Deborah for all of the info! She took Aden for his chronic ear infections and can't say enough about Dr. Melissa. He has been ear infection free for months now. :)
http://www.naturespathchiro.com/
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