Ear infections;Can any alternative therapies help?
My child keeps getting ear infections and our doctor wants to insert ear tubes. Can any alternative therapies help?
answer:
You’ve got a good shot. Though most mainstream doctors haven’t yet turned a friendly ear, research suggests that recurrent ear infections can be caused by intolerance to certain foods and treated by eliminating those foods.
“It’s virtually malpractice that every pediatrician isn’t trying this approach,” says physician Bill Manahan of the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. “It’s such an easy first step.”
One of the best studies tested 104 kids with recurrent ear infections and found that 81 of them had at least one food allergy. Cutting the offending foods from their diet for four months helped 86 percent of those kids—and when the foods were reintroduced, 94 percent had a new bout of illness.
Typical culprits are dairy products, wheat, chocolate, and soy, says Manahan. He suggests identifying foods your child eats a lot of and eliminating each completely—one at a time—for two to three weeks. If that helps, enforce the taboo for a few months, then reintroduce the foods one by one every four days or so.
Eight to 10 grams per day of the natural sweetener xylitol, in the form of gum or syrup, may also help; shop for it at xylitolstore.com. And some kids have gotten good results from craniosacral therapy or homeopathy.
