For Ear Aches — try an onion

Being in a practice where I see people who are sick, not just in pain, I will have surprise phone calls during the evening or even in the middle of the night with a patient at their wits end.

One night a patient called me and said, “I’m on my way out the door to the emergency room with my husband. He has a bad earache and he is in a lot of pain. But I just thought I would call you first and see if you have a suggestion.”

I did. This remedy worked immediately. Actually, I’ve never had it fail my patients yet. One day it may, but so far, it rates 100% on adults and children alike. Here is the remedy.

Get a saucepan, fill it with water and bring it to a boil. Take an onion, either white or yellow, and place it in the boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes.

Take the onion out and cut it in half. Wrap one of the halves in cheesecloth (or a thin cloth).

Put the wrapped onion up to your ear with the cut side of the onion toward the ear.

When the onion is real hot, you might have to hold it away from the ear just a little to keep from getting a burn. Hold the onion to the ear for twenty minutes. At the end of the twenty minutes, the pain is relieved.

If the pain returns, repeat this procedure several times. The patient I spoke about above said that in twenty minutes, her husband’s ear stopped hurting and never returned.

He never did anything more for his ear, like take some medicine or vitamin or herb—nothing. The onion was all he used and he had complete relief.

That was much less expensive than an emergency room visit. Of course, everyone isn’t so lucky.

Some people will need to follow up with more treatment, but it will give relief, and sometimes we need almost immediate relief. Twenty minutes is almost immediate relief.

I have also had people use this remedy who have vertigo, have gone to the doctor and been told they do not have an infection. They might not know the cause of their vertigo.

I like remedies that first do no harm. If you have a problem with your ear and you use this remedy, even if it doesn’t work, you haven’t lost anything but an onion.

You haven’t taken any drugs that might have negative side effects. You haven’t paid a big sum of money for a prescription. You have lost an onion. That’s all.

There are reasons for ear pain for which the onion remedy will not work.

For instance, a person can have ear pain because of a TMJ dysfunction. If that is the case, the onion will not work. Onions have a drawing effect and work on the chemistry of the body. It pulls infection, like infection in the ear.

TMJ is a structural problem, not a chemical one. So if there is a problem that doesn’t call for that drawing effect, the onion will not work.

Another way I’ve used an onion is on mosquito bites. Some people get huge bumps on their body from mosquito or other insect bites. If that is the case for you, put a piece of raw onion on the bite and watch it disappear. This is especially useful at picnics with children, because often a raw onion is available.

If you are home, because of the smell of onions, I have another remedy I prefer for insect bites.

My aunt’s grandchild was scratching her leg one day where a mosquito had bitten her. I made a remedy of a small amount of baking soda mixed with water, just enough to make a paste.

I had the little girl sit in my lap as I applied the potion to her mosquito bite, which was red, swollen and larger than a quarter. I left it on for about twenty minutes and then washed it off with cool water.

She didn’t scratch it or complain about it at all for the rest of the afternoon.

Again, a cheap remedy that can do no harm and which, if it doesn’t work, you are not left worse off.

Dr. Elva Jo Edwards is a chiropractor in private practice in Lakewood, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. She is a graduate of Western States Chiropractic School in Portland, Oregon. A Tahoka native, she is also a graduate of Texas Tech University and Tahoka High School. She is a published author. Her book is A Texas Tradegy: Orphaned by Bootleggers (www.atexas tragedy.com). The purpose of the column she writes is to give the reader tips for better health using natural methods.