Getting Rid of An Infant Ear Infection Naturally

Ear infections are one of those things your child will probably get, no matter what you do.  And of course the only thing we think of to clear up ear infections are antibiotics.  Well, everyone has heard about antibiotic resistance and how this is becoming such a huge problem in the US.  Even the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued new guidelines for treating ear infections, a more "watch and wait" approach because many ear infections will drain and clear up on their own.

Well, you have heard some about Carson's tummy issues and I knew 10 days of the pink stuff would not go over well on his little system.  I tuned out somewhere around getting a prescription for diaper rash from the antibiotics because they are so harsh on a little baby.  I felt like their had to be another way to clear up his ear infection.  It probably wouldn't be his last and I don't want to rush in and get antibiotics every time he gets one.  I used to get sinus infections all the time, now I know how to treat them naturally, so I figured their must be some way to treat an ear infection naturally.

I found so much information online, but not a whole lot dealing with a 3.5 month old.  After asking questions and doing research, here is what we did and it worked great!  I hope this helps someone else avoid antibiotics in the future.

Disclaimer: To treat an ear infection naturally takes a lot more time and effort.  But think of how good it is to be saving your child from antibiotics and avoid contributing to antibiotic resistance.  Antibiotic resistance is a real and scary concern.

Here is what you need:

-numbing drops (either prescription from the doctor or Hyland's ear drops)
-wash rags
-heating pad
-Mullein Garlic ear drops
-tylenol for nighttime (if the baby is very uncomfortable and cannot sleep)

Every morning and night, heat the mullein garlic drops until body temp.  I tested the warmth on my wrist and made sure it was just warm, not hot at all.  Have someone hold your kiddo on their side, you can do it yourself, but it is so much easier if you have some help.  Put about 4 drops in their ear (I always put way too much because you try to put drops in a baby's ear while they are squirming around).  Hold them on their side for a couple minutes.  Then when you turn them back upright, make sure to have a wash rag handy for blotting the oil that comes out.

Use the numbing drops whenever your little one seems uncomfortable.  Follow the same procedure as above.

I don't know about you, but I cannot get Carson to lay still...ever.  Unless he is sleeping or nursing.  So I would heat up our heating pad and put that under his ear whenever he would nurse.  Sometimes I would lay a dry baby washcloth if it felt too warm or if he had oil or other drops in his ears that would come out.  I feel like this help his ear so much!  Also, another good trick is that baby's are super distracted when they are nursing, at least Carson is.  He would cry and squirm whenever we did the drops in his ear, unless he was nursing.  You can use that as a good time to get drops in his ear as well.

We only had to use the tylenol for two nights, then he was fine!  One last tidbit, no kiddo likes to be woken up in the middle of the night by cold ear drops.  But Carson didn't always make it through the night on the tylenol.  This may be TMI, but if you put the drops in your bra before you go to sleep, they are warm for if your baby needs them.  I found that worked really well.  If you have any other questions, let me know, I hope I can help.

Oh, and if you want to know how to clear up a sinus infection or at least stop one from starting when you are sick and congested...just do the sinus rinses with 3 drops of grapefruit seed extract.  Works every time!

Dairy Free

It has been a little tense here this past week.  This post is not to discuss your views on vaccines, this is just to share what has been going on here.

First of all, childhood immunizations make me nervous.  I was one of those babies that reacted very poorly.  Because of this I was very concerned about Carson.  Thankfully I found a great pediatrician that understood my concerns and was willing to work with me.  I didn't want Carson to get all the shots at once so they let me do a slower, alternative schedule.  I know they say it is perfectly safe, but it seems like so many vaccines at one time for such a small baby.  My pediatrician and I decided that Carson would get only the DTaP vaccine and the oral Rotavirus vaccine at his first appointment.

Well, Carson did pretty good.  I nursed him afterwards to calm him down and he seemed fine.  The next day he was fine as well, but about 48 hrs after the vaccines he started getting very irritable and fussy, which was to be expected, that is one of the side effects, but then I started finding blood in his diaper.

Poor little guy, mommy let him sleep in her arms

I called the pediatrician and they wanted to see him right away.  After testing his diaper to make sure it was blood, the pediatrician told me that Carson has a milk protein allergy.  I asked why this came out all of sudden and the doctor's response was that it can come out anytime and it has absolutely no correlation to the vaccines.

I started doing some research, and found several other instances of Mom's asking if this has happened to other infants.  I guess the oral Rotavirus vaccine can be very irritable on baby's stomach and intestines.  I have cut all dairy out of my diet for now, but so far, the blood is still there.  We just feel so bad for Carson, he has been so upset and just crying.  He can only be consoled by finally sleeping or being walked around.  Today was the first day he seemed more back to normal, even though the blood is still present.

Sleepy guy

Now, was it really the vaccines?  We don't know.  We just find it so suspicious that our boy has not had an issue with his tummy at all and then all of a sudden, two days after an oral vaccine, he has blood in his diaper.  We are hoping and praying that it just passes and clears on its own.  I do not care if I have to be dairy free as long as it makes Carson feel better.  Our doctor seems to think that if it isn't dairy in my diet, we need to put him on an allergy free formula, which I really do not want to do.  Prayers are appreciated as we move forward and wait.  From research that I have done it seems like once babies start developing these issues, they react to many things.  There is the potential for a long road of elimination diets to figure out what is hurting my sweet boy.  But that is the worst case.  Like I said, we are praying for a complete healing, or healing from eliminating only dairy.

He has started drooling a lot!

 Thank you all for your prayers.  Please also pray for a friend of mine in Denver.  She has just found out that her cord and placenta are failing and she is only 28 weeks along.  They are expecting to induce her in the next couple weeks.

I'll leave you with a pic of my cute, special, adorable little boy.  :-)

My Natural Skin Care Routine

If any of you have known me for a decent amount of time, you will know that I am somewhat of a natural health freak.  Not about everything, you have to pick your battles, but I try to avoid conventional medicine and seek out more natural options when I can.

One of those is skincare.  I had clear skin throughout highschool and into my early college years.  Around my junior year, my skin went haywire and has been pretty bad ever since.  The only time it was clear again was while I was on birth control.  Well, if you want to have a family, you can't be on BC, so I started trying to search for other options for my skin besides harsh chemical routines (like proactive).  

Besides just general acne, I had really oily skin as well.  It was terrible, for those of you who have oily skin, you understand.  I hated that shine on my face by afternoon and makeup would look so gross by the end of the day, not to mention if I wore makeup, my skin would break out even more when I did wear makeup.  It was terrible.  I tried so many different skincare regimens, creams, acne spot treatments, you name it.  I tried even natural acne routines, with expensive products from natural stores.  Proactive ended up working the best but it was kind of expensive, and so harsh on my skin.  My face always felt so rough.

So I started doing some research.  I finally came across one skincare method which really intrigued me, and made sense, it was called oil cleansing.  You actually wash your face with oil.

Huh?  That is exactly what they tell you not to do when you have oily skin.  You are "supposed" to wash your face twice a day with an oil free cleanser and then apply oil free lotion and apply harsh alcohol toners before so you do not produce so much oil.  Well, this oil cleansing method and its proponents claimed that is the exact reason why you have acne.  Your face is so oily because you are constantly stripping all the oil away, so your body is frantically trying to produce more oil to protect your skin!

I decided to give it a try, what did I have to lose?  And it has been amazing!

My acne didn't go away completely.  We figured out that hormones are the major player in my acne, but my oily skin was no more and my acne seriously decreased.  Not to mention my skin feels soft and healthy, not dry and scaly.  And it is completely natural.  I am not longer putting tons of chemicals on my skin everyday, multiple times a day.  And it hasn't been an issue with makeup either.  I still use eye makeup remover and then just use the oil method and it takes makeup off as well.  Here is the link to the regimen I use.  It is so easy.  I add tea tree oil to my oil mixture since I do have acne problems and that is something that is known to be good for acne.

It is also really cheap.  I bought bottles of caster oil, grape-seed oil, and jojoba oil and am still on my original containers, about a year later.  It is a little bit more time consuming for your bedtime regimen, but worth it.  If my skin feels really dirty, I will use a tiny bit of baking soda mixed with water in the shower to wash my face, and then apply jojoba oil as the moisturizer.  The biggest compliment I have gotten is how balanced my skin looks now, no more oil sheen.  Now if we can just get the rest of the acne to go away, I'll be happy!

Health Post Update

Well, after mentioning all my health issues before, I figured I should follow up with how that is changing with my pregnancy or how that is affecting my pregnancy.  Thankfully, it is not affecting my pregnancy at all, the Dr's were very concerned at first, but everything seems to be okay right now.

Before I got pregnant, I was following a gluten-free/paleo type diet.  Basically no gluten, low starch, and low to no dairy.  I was doing pretty good, and then I stopped feeling good, which is when I learned I was pregnant.  It was really hard to eat gluten-free/paleo during the first trimester.  All I wanted was breads, pizza, and macaroni cheese, and donuts.  :-)  So I went back to eating all my old wheat staples.  And I still felt terrible, but what of that was pregnancy vs eating wheat, I don't know.  Well, it was mostly pregnancy, as I learned later.  But I had specifically been avoiding gluten because I had read several articles about high thyroid antibodies and gluten sensitivities and that they were linked.  Something to do with similar proteins and a similar auto-immune response.  So in an attempt to help my thyroid, I had stopped eating all wheat and gluten.

As my pregnancy progressed into the second trimester, the doctor was encouraged to see that my thyroid hormone levels were still normal, meaning that Peanut's thyroid will develop just fine.  There is a chance that pregnancy can aggravate thyroid conditions and push the mom into either a hypo or hyperthyroid condition. She checked my antibody levels again and they are actually lower than they were before, although still elevated.  And I feel good.  I am not having any stomach issues or any of my old food issues.  Basically, since pregnancy lowers your immune system so you don't attack the baby, it is doing the same for my thyroid and all of my other seeming food intolerance.  Long story short, my body likes being pregnant.

 I am really curious to see what happens after the baby is born and if I will have to go back to a more strict type diet.  The one thing I will add, is that while I was gluten-free/paleo my skin cleared up beautifully, no acne at all.  And I have acne back full force now, but I have been told that it could be pregnancy hormones though, so who knows really.  I am just trying to focus on moderation in all things right now, especially so I am eating a healthy diet with baby.  We'll see how things change after the baby is born and if some of my old issues start cropping up again.

So their you have it!  I will have more blood drawn in the third trimester to make sure everything is still okay, but I'm happy that Peanut is developing just fine.

The Health Post - Point 2

All right, point 2.  I know you are dying to know after I left you hanging on point 1 :-)  And also, family members, I am not trying to scare you or paint a worst case scenario pictures.  I am being honest.  And hopefully most of you heard this from me before I posted this.

As I pointed out in the last post, I have been getting a ton of blood work done.  For both the food type allergies as well as some other issues.  My body is basically so out of whack, it's a wonder it works at all!
:-)  That's a joke, although sadly slightly true.

My doctor has been concerned that maybe I may have PCOS or Hashimoto's.  You can read about both of those in the links.  That has been the other concern I have been trying to get checked out, in the midst of the food/allergy issues.  Like I said above, my body just doesn't seem to want to function correctly.  This has been a long time of trying to get this area checked out because my work changed my health insurance, and I could no longer go to the doctors I was originally going too.  I finally found a female doctor that I like, she is great and she went a step farther in doing the blood tests.  They usually find that all my hormone levels appear to be fine, despite some problems.  This doctor finally ordered an additional test, not just a hormone panel, which looks at all the normal stuff, but also checked my thyroid antibodies.  These came back high.  High thyroid antibodies usually occur in people who are hypothyroid.  Currently, my thyroid hormones (TSH) are at normal levels.

I was referred to an endocrinologist.  High thyroid antibodies means that my body is attacking my thyroid.  This is not a good thing.  My thyroid hormone levels are fine, the endocrinologist checked those and he also checked my thyroid for any problems.  So my thyroid is still functioning correctly despite being under attack.  Basically, he does not want to start me on thyroid medication to help my thyroid out, because he is afraid that it will push me into the hyperthyroid range for the time being.  I am now being closely monitored and will have my thyroid hormones checked every three months to make sure that they are staying normal.  Once my thyroid hormone levels start to fall, this will indicate that my body (thyroid) is not able to keep up with the attack any longer, and I will need to go on thyroid medication.  So basically, it is a waiting game until I become hypothyroid and the possibility that my thyroid could fail.  My official diagnosis from the endocrinologist is that I probably have early Hashimoto's, because right now there is no damage to my thyroid, so this is a good thing!  He has said that I will always have high antibodies and that this autoimmune condition (my body is attacking my body) will always exist.  There is no medication to cure the condition, just thyroid medication to stabilize the condition.  So I have now been looking into natural ways to heal they thyroid and lower antibodies.  Personally, I do not want my thyroid to fail or to have to take medication.  So I am going to try to stop the progress as much as possible.

Now, my other doctor, believes the hashimoto's to be the problem, and suggests taking the thyroid medication.  She is very concerned that we are ignoring the issues, because I do have symptoms and there is a possibility that many of my symptoms could be linked to the hashimoto's picture.  But I have decided to not start taking it.

This is why I decided to start paleo and gluten free again, despite the diagnosis that I do not have a gluten allergy (celiac's disease).  I have read some research which supports that a gluten allergy (or other food allergies/sensitivities) go hand in hand with an autoimmune thyroid condition which is what is happening to me.  It may not be the cure, but I think it is interesting how the wheat sensitivity or allergy plays into this, when before it was always suspect.  I learned that just because I don't have celiac's disease doesn't mean I can't have a sensitivity to wheat and gluten.  I just don't have the full blown disease (which is so good too!  Celiac's causes a lot of damage to the small intestine and a subsequent loss of nutrients from your food.  It can get really serious).

So right now, I just wait.  Which is fine.  I like my life, I love my husband, and I have more than enough stuff to keep me busy.  Like I said, I will continue to pursue my health quest, because if you lose your health, what do you have? (Besides the Lord, anyway.  He will always be with me, but I do feel he wants me to make the most of this life and not live with my head in the sand).  Yes, maybe I will get a miraculous healing, or maybe God wants me to use the brain he gave me to figure it out.  As much as faith is just believing, it is also action.  You can just sit and say God exists but if you do not take the action to ask him to be your Lord or become a Christian, then that is not really following God.  I feel like it is the same way with life, you can just sit and meander through, or you can act, and use the brain that God gave us to figure things out!

Okay, off my soapbox.  Thanks for listening to my rant.  Michael and I have some fun stuff planned so I will hopefully make this blog "fun" again.  :-)

The Health Post - Point 1

Be forewarned, this post is just writing, and it is the compilation of all the testing, research, and decisions that I have had to make about my health in the past 6 months.  This post answers the questions about why I started eating paleo and why I have all of a sudden started posting all this stuff on my blog.

This is going to be several posts, so we will call this one - Point 1, because this was my starting point.  I am at a point that I just want answers.  And writing it out is kind of a release for me as well, so you don't have to read if you do not want to.

Point 1: Digestive Issues

I have always had them.  I cannot remember a time that I haven't.  And it is weird and I cannot seem to be able to link them to anything.  I could have pizza one day and be fine, then have pizza another day and just have cramps and gurgling for an hour.  The main thing is a pressure/pain in my stomach that wakes me up almost every morning.  During times when my digestive issues are under control, it is only a pressure, at least that is the only way I can describe it.  Like I know where my intestines are exactly, but it is not painful.  When my digestive issues are not under control, I wake up to pain where the pressure is, basically intestinal cramps. This morning ritual occurs sometime between 4-6am, so I have never been good at sleeping in.   The cause of this pain and/or pressure is a back up in my stomach.  If you don't realize what this means, then go here, I really don't want to write about it.

I kept food journals, I tried specific diets, but nothing seemed to correlate.  I would go off dairy or gluten or meat and feel better, but still not ever 100%.  I tried fiber supplements, anti-spasmodic medication, natural herbs, you name it.  Skin prick tests showed allergies to dairy and eggs, and of course all animal dander or feathers, grass, pollen, etc.  Other blood allergy tests said nuts, corn, pork, wheat and gluten were what I was allergic too.  So basically everything was always constantly changing and we could never really figure out what was going on.

All of this information accumulated from the time I was 18 months old, when my mom finally took me in to the doctor because I coughed all the time and had so much drainage (from environmental allergies we think) that I could barely eat without choking.  My parents found out later that I was anaphylactic to nuts when I was three, and my dad gave me a cashew, which ended in a trip to the ER.  So I have had some allergy type issues since I was a small child.

My digestive symptoms followed me through high school as well.  In high school, I started trying to eat differently, to see if that helped.  I tried dairy free, gluten free, vegetarianism, and veganism.  I thought at one time my problem was digesting meat.  I think I ended up eating a mix of all of those diets throughout high school.

When I got into college, I tried to start medical routes again, just because I really wanted to know what was going on!  But I soon stopped because I couldn't afford it.  In the process, I did realize that I had to give up on my vegetarian/vegan preferences (I was still mainly eating this way) because my body needed to more protein and fat (according to the doctors).  Fast forward to today.  I feel like now is the first time in my life I am really able to approach the digestive issues.  I finally had good insurance and we were in a stable place financially to begin diving into this.

The first step every doctor took when I went in with any digestive issue in mind, was to check for celiac's disease, which is an intolerance to gluten, the protein found in most grains.  I usually never did any of the tests, because they were so expensive.  This time, I just decided to follow through with them.

My doctor's recently did a blood test for celiac's disease which I think I wrote about back in February last year, which freaked me out honestly.  This test showed that I had an allergy to corn, pork, soy, wheat and gluten, and nuts and that some of my blood antibodies were too high.  The test was "inconclusive" for celiac's disease because one antibody in my blood was normal and the other was high.  They both needed to be high for a positive result of celiac, through the blood test alone.  My doctor said to disregard the other "supposed" allergies because blood testing for those has a very high error rate (then why were we testing for celiac that way?  I still don't know).

The next step was an upper endoscopy to look at my small intestine for damage.  Celiac's disease causes inflammation and damage to the cilia of the small intestine when the person eats gluten containing foods.  I balked at that test.  That would be a very pricey test when it was all said and done.  That was money we wanted to spend elsewhere.  So I decided to try gluten free again and see if I really felt a difference.  I felt good for awhile, and then realized that allow the issues (ie, no pain), I still was having problems.  And staying away from gluten is a huge pain.  In this time I was going to several other doctors for some other issues, and a one of them really wanted an official diagnosis of celiac before they would really move forward with anything.  So I decided to just do the endoscopy, which means that I had to begin eating gluten again and eat it consistently for at least three months before the test.

So I did.  And for the most part, noticed that my digestive issues were blatantly worse.  I felt generally not as good.  I still don't know if that was the increased consumption of more processed foods and sugar again, or what.  My upper endoscopy was scheduled January 10th, 2013, and the results showed damage in my small intestine.  But not damage to the cilia, so my diagnosis for celiac was again "inconclusive."  Further blood tests and gene typing finally gave my doctor enough information for him to feel comfortable declaring me, "not celiac", but he still doesn't know what is causing the inflammation.  I am supposed to go back and discuss this with him, but I have not yet, because I am somewhat burned out of all the testing that I have had done.  I will probably follow up in the future.

So why am I still eating gluten free?  Because I do a little better when I do, and I have done some of my own research on the subject.  And for other reasons which will make more sense after point 2, whenever I get around to writing that.  So, now you know what I know, which unfortunately is not much.  But at least I feel like it is one step closer to figuring out what is going on.