Ear Infection Remedies

First, I check the ear, and made sure that the eardrum is intact…the ear canal looked red and swollen. I mentally assess: have they been swimming? Are they teething or starting to get a little cold? Are they simply uncomfortable or in major pain?

Time for a home remedy to get this under control quickly. I head into the kitchen and grab…an onion!

A traditional ear infection remedy is to put a half of a warm onion over your child’s ear, or to put a few drops of onion juice into the ear.

This makes a lot of sense when you consider the  properties of onions.  They contain the same strong  antibiotic/ antiviral, and anti-fungal ingredient found in garlic, called allicin.  But onions also contain a larger dose of a natural anti-inflammatory than garlic, which explains why they are preferred over garlic for ear and chest/congestion complaints.

Onions are a good traditional ear infection remedy for both kinds of ear infection, in our experience. You can use a warmed half of an onion, or use the juice. I’ll show how to use both, and the pros and cons of both below.

Onion Juice Ear Infection Remedy:

The benefit of using onion juice is that it’s very quick. I tend to opt for this if my child wakes up with ear discomfort, as they’re able too just go right back to sleep after the juice is in their ears.

One downside is that it’s a little tricky to extract the juice from an onion. I’ve heard of numerous ways to extract onion juice, from grating and squeezing, to using a garlic press.  Onions usually aren’t really all that ‘juicy’, and you don’t want pulp going down into the ear.

Here is my SUPER EASY solution…the easy ear infection remedy that I just used tonight, when my daughter was complaining of ear pain.

I cut the root end off of an onion.  Then I held the onion on its side.  Using the tip of a spoon, I scraped up the newly cut end until I had several drops of onion juice in the spoon.

…like this.

I had her lay on her side with the hurting ear facing up, and I dripped the juice right into her ear.  She kept her head tipped so the juice would stay in, and covered it with a cotton ball.  In just a few minutes, her pain was gone, and she was able to turn over and go right to sleep. Onion juice can be repeated as often as needed when and if the pain returns.

***Update***  If you’re going to treat one ear, go ahead and treat both.  That would have saved us both some sleep.  I did repeat the remedy the next morning as well, but we have not had to repeat again.

Another Ear Infection Remedy Method

There is one benefit to using the onion half over the juice:  Sometimes, the feeling of “water” in the ear is a bit traumatic.  If your child is picky about water in their ears, or if there is *any* chance that the ear drum could be perforated, you can do this method instead.

Simply warming half of an onion on a skillet until it’s very warm (but not hot enough to burn!) and holding the cut side over the ear. Onions heat VERY quickly, so be careful not to over-warm it to the point where it burns.  The vapors of the onion are plenty potent enough to do the job. I hold it on for a couple of minutes. Don’t be surprised if the ear or skin turns red…onions are a rubefacient, meaning they pull the blood flow up to the surface of the skin.

We treat both ears, and also the neck just below the ear, as the eustachian tube that drains the inner ear into the throat can also swell closed.