There are two general causes of ear infections. The first cause is when water gets trapped in the ear canal due to the buildup of wax (called swimmer’s ear). This causes bacteria to grow and an infection to occur. The second cause is a middle ear infection generally related to an allergy or upper respiratory infection and is caused by fluid buildup in the ear.

Ear infections can either be viral or bacterial, but viral is much more common — therefore, treatment with conventional antibiotics typically is ineffective and includes side effects. Fortunately, there’s a better way to go.

This article courtesy of Dr Axe

There are four things you can do to really help heal an ear infection fast, and there are four terrific home remedies that you want to consider.

1. Garlic Oil

The first thing you want to do, and you want to do internally in the ear, is use garlic oil. You can buy garlic oil at almost any health food store. Raw Garlic Oil the ear because garlic actually has natural antiviral properties, and the majority of the time when a child has an ear infection, it’s a virus rather than bacteria-related. This is why antibiotics are completely ineffective against ear infections.

In fact, if you go to your primary care physician and that doctor recommends an antibiotic for an ear infection, I would really consider if you should use that doctor or not. That’s because the doctor really probably doesn’t know what he’s doing, unfortunately, because most ear infections are viral. Plus, we know that antibiotics can cause allergies in children so you definitely want to find an alternative treatment.

That’s where garlic oil comes in. A few drops in the ear — about two warm drops daily — is an effective treatment due to the antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects of garlic oil.

2. Tea Tree Oil

The second thing you want to be doing is taking something called tea tree oil, also known as melaleuca. Tea Tree oil benefits include powerful antiseptic properties, as it’s been used for hundreds of years for the natural treatments of wounds and infections.

Simply, use a few drops of tea tree oil to treat an ear infection. You can mix it with a little coconut oil  as well, and rub it all over the ear and all around the ear area (rather than inside the ear).

3. Chiropractic Care

The third treatment is actually chiropractic care. One of the benefits of Chiropractic Care is they have been shown to be very, very effective in the treatment of ear infections.

The spine can misalign in the upper neck and that can actually affect the way the body heals. As a result, those nerve signals getting from the brain to that area are affected as well, and it affects the overall healing.

Bring your child to a wellness or a pediatric chiropractor, who can often do a very light manual adjustment to the child. Sometimes they even just do some light tapping or use an instrument, and that can actually help heal an ear infection quickly as well.

We already know your Chiropractor could be own antioxidant, and your chiropractor can also help treat ear infections.

4. Nail Down the Root Cause (Allergies)

Last but not least, you’ve got to get to the root cause of what is causing the ear infection in the first place. One of the most common things is food sensitivities.

If your child is allergic to gluten, certain things like lactose or casein in dairy, nuts, even citrus — any of these can be the causes of ear infection today. What I would consider doing is getting your child what’s called an IgG food sensitivity test and actually testing for food allergies, food sensitivities or food intolerances. That’s one of the big things to look for.

You can get those tests done — they’re fairly inexpensive — or if you don’t want to do that, then just watch and listen to their bodies. Notice if they’re consuming certain types of conventional cow’s milk or gluten that can cause the ear infections. And in general for almost everybody out there, if your child is getting ear infections, it might be time to give up gluten and get off conventional cow’s milk

You can replace cow’s milk products with goat milk, goat milk yogurt and goat cheese, as most kids do better with that form of dairy. Conventional cow’s milk and the gluten in grain products are probably the two biggest culprits when it comes to causing ear infections, so make sure to naturally treat food allergies and gluten sensitivity to prevent ear infections.

Remember those four things if you want to help remedy your child’s ear infections. If you do that, I think you’re going to find that those ear infections don’t come back in the first place and that they will heal very quickly.