An Integrative Herbalist Approach to Inner Ear Issues
Or my crazy "woo woo" plan to fix chronic dizziness
Thank you for all the suggestions. Lots of good ideas. I have come up with a tentative plan to treat my whatever the hell it is possibly undiagnosed mastoiditis or chronic inner ear infection.
I had a call with my neurologist the other day. He’s the best doctor I have at Kaiser. Listens, takes me seriously, asks the right questions. An MRI is scheduled. He has basically ruled out vestibular migraines. Follow up with ENT. The good part about this is that now that he’s ruled out migraines, maybe the ENT will look for other causes. I have a video appointment with an internal medicine doctor tonight about the slightly high liver enzymes, which my neuro was not concerned about.
In the meantime, I sat down and combined logic and intuition to come up with my best possible plan for now as I await more doctor’s consultations.
Logic: Symptoms get worse after teeth cleaning. I have periodontal disease, which is much better than it was but it’s not gone. I have improved before on antibiotics. Likely bacterial component.
However, the antibiotics don’t completely clear out whatever it is. I have tested positive for MARCoNS - Multiple Antibiotic Resistant Coagulase Negative Staphylococci - in my nasal passages in the past.
More antibiotics might make things worse over time, and mess up my gut. Long-term antibiotics to try to really kick things out might just entrench more MARCoNS. Not a good idea.
And there’s maybe more.
Intuition: Remember the positive mycotoxin test you had after you first got sick. Mold or fungal infection may also be an issue. Note: Rash is showing up on forehead again, likely fungal infection.
Except, two 2-week rounds of oral Diflucan from my integrative doctor a few years back did not knock it out either.
Let me be clear that I surfed and swam for years without earplugs and would always get stuck water in my right ear, until I finally wised up and got ear plugs for my lap swimming. I would put swimmer’s ear drops in there to clear things out but did some of that water settle in really deep back there and become a mini swamp? That’s what I’m thinking.
Hell, I was swimming and doing stand-up paddle board in a literal watering hole in Austin, Texas right before I got sick. At first, I thought I might have a freshwater amoeba in my brain, but they told me I’d be dead already. Who knows for sure?
OK, so how can I kill mold and bacteria inside my mastoid/inner ear without taking systemic antibiotics and antifungals? I did use a custom nasal spray twice before from my integrative doctor, but those treatments didn’t completely clear it out either.
High dose herbs might help but that can also stress the gut and mess with the microbiome.
Idea: Treat the area around the ear topically with colloidal silver, herbs, essential oils, and/or tinctures and consider any other non-invasive treatment (like light therapy) that can reduce bacteria/fungal overgrowth.
No, I’m not going to put anything IN the ear like garlic/mullein oil. I did that before and honestly, I think that might make things worse with cases like mine, and the infection is really deep in there at any rate.
Intuition: Sit out in the sun for 15 minutes per day when the sun is the strongest, with your bad ear towards the sun.
So far, so good, the sunlight actually seems to have calmed things down a little bit.
Additionally, I will start using light therapy products on the area as well, because it will kill pathogens while being harmless to human cells. Both red and blue light can help with this.
I’ll also try cymatics - sound waves. This can be achieved with specific tones in an MP3 file that you play at low volume on the affected body part - no need to listen. (In this case, I can play the tones right behind the ear with headphones.)
I have not yet sorted out which herbs/oils I may apply to the skin. The potential herbs/oils for an external poultice application include tea tree essential oil, oregano oil, turmeric, neem, etc. I will write out a long list and then use intuition (pendulum) to choose.
For now, I have done a single test of witch hazel application on the area that feels swollen, which should help reduce swelling because witch hazel is an astringent. Witch hazel also has antimicrobial properties. So far so good.
Of course, all the rest of the stuff, gut health, energy work, emotional crapola, blah blah blah.
Will keep you posted.
PS A big thank you to my supporters. If you can throw a few coins in the Tip Jar or upgrade your subscription, it will help me pay for all these herbs and stuff.
You need this guy. He’s the best. People fly from all over the world to see him in St Louis for their mystery illnesses
Have you ever thought about going to see an osteopath for some jaw/head/neck manipulation? From what mine has said, there are (awake) parents who enlist osteopaths’ help to preventatively treat newborns for inner ear infections.