The following will prove most useful to the young parent or grandparent. For sure, a young child with an ear infection is a painful moment. Most kids not sleeping through the night should probably be treated for ear infections first. The protocol I shall give you here will work wonderfully well for every child not allergic to garlic. In severe cases, the child may be treated with a new dose every few hours. This is a hard sell to my patients who notice that there is still garlic oil in the ears of the child and cannot imagine the value of adding more. But we have found that the body will pull of some active energetic principles from herbs which are gone very quickly in the beginning, or acute stage of an illness. We have treated a broken bone with Miracle Splash, for example, as often as every 15 minutes to keep it completely pain free. Garlic oil is in this category when treating ear infections. We just wipe out the exterior of the ear, add more oil and replace the cotton...

But I am getting ahead of myself.

In addition to childhood ear infections and earaches from wind, treating the ears with garlic oil is very helpful for anyone, child or adult, with a sore throat, respiratory infection, or even anyone with a stiff neck. It is remarkable as people come in to be adjusted due to a stiff neck, how high a percentage actually are stiff due to lymph nodes swollen in the muscles of the neck! Draining this out will certainly help with stubborn neck cases.

So, let me help you know how to make the garlic oil for just a few pennies, and I'll also tell you just how to use it. I will also give you one precaution for those cases where there might be a ruptured eardrum.

First, making garlic oil is quite easy. Because garlic oil is only good for a few months at room temperature, I recommend you make only a small amount. The size of the glass container you use will determine how much you make. A baby food jar is perfect, or a small jam jar with a small diameter bottom.

The first step is to cover the bottom of whatever container you choose with fresh garlic, finely minced or (better yet) pressed. You do not need mountains and mountains of garlic in there, but you should cover the bottom completely. Pour over this about 3/4" (2 cm) of extra virgin olive oil. Now, it is important that moisture be able to evaporate, so if it is bug season, you can just put a thin cloth over the top. If it is not bug season, just leave it open on the counter. In either case, leave it at room temperature or higher for 3 days. After that, just strain it off through a wire mesh strainer and discard the garlic and put the oil in a dropper bottle (or just put the lid on the bottle you used and keep a dropper nearby) and it is ready to use.

In cases where you need to get it ready faster, you can put the jar (open) in the oven at about 180-200 degrees F (82-93 degrees C). Leave it there for an hour and most of the value will be in the oil. Then you would strain it and the oil would be ready to use.

Second, let us talk about how to use the oil.

Normally, with mild infections, we can just fill the ear canal with the garlic oil. In stubborn cases, cases of hearing loss, problems with the nervous system or cases where there may be malformation of some kind, we use a few drops of garlic oil and a few drops of Dr. Christopher's Ear and Nerve formula. In either case, we will massage the garlic oil into the surrounding tissue, up on the temples and forehead, around the base of the skull and under the ears behind the jaw in the groove there.

When done, we massage the ear with the head tilted so the ear is up--encouraging the oil or oil and extract to go as deep into the ear canal as possible. Then, we plug it with cotton.

Most of the time, we can do this just at night and it will cure the cases. Occasionally, we have a more serious case where we will re-treat the ears every couple hours all day long. We just wipe out the outer ear with a tissue and then put more in and plug with cotton again.

Third, a precaution. If there is fluid coming out of the ear, chances are the eardrum is ruptured. Ordinarily, there is no real problem with using the garlic oil and ear and nerve in these cases but it is not helpful either and some minor risk certainly exists. Instead, once you know an eardrum is broken, we advocate using Dr. Christopher's Complete Tissue and Bone Ointment. Take a lump of the ointment large enough to plug the ear canal. Put on a hat and a scarf and keep the hat and scarf on whether indoors or out until the eardrum is healed. The ointment will melt into the area and will need to be replaced 2-3 times per day. Usually 2-3 days is enough to heal the eardrum, which heals better than you would think. If not, please do consult your physician on the eardrum. They will, of course, not be supportive of the natural therapies, but they will be able to determine if additional intervention is needed. Once the eardrum is healed, you can resume the oil and Ear and Nerve.

Finally, a note: If you are trying to get a baby back to sleep, you want the oil to be about 100 degrees F (37 degrees C). Be careful not to overheat it as the ear is quite delicate and sensitive. But slightly warm oil will speed the relief and augment the natural antihistamine effect of the garlic oil.