Every parent has been awakened at some time during the night by the sound of a child crying from the agony of an ear infection. Usually, the culprit is a very painful condition called acute otitis media. The fever soars to 103 degrees or higher and fluid oozes out of the ear.

Most pediatricians will treat an ear infection with an antibiotic such as ampicillin or penicillin or an oral decongestant. Putting tubes in the ears and surgery on the eardrum (myringotomy) are used in severe cases. The problem is that every one of these medical treatments has serious negative side effects.

In the book How to Raise a Healthy Child...In Spite of Your Doctor, Dr. Robert S. Mendelsohn cites a double-blind study in which 171 children with acute otitis media were divided into four groups. The severity of the condition ranged from one ear to both ears being infected.

The first group received myringotomy surgery. The second group was given antibiotics. The third group was given a combination of surgery and antibiotics, and the fourth group received no chemical or surgical treatment at all. The authors of the study found that there was no significant difference between the four groups in terms of pain, temperature, discharge, eardrum appearances or hearing loss. Furthermore, no one group suffered recurrences more than any other. In short, recovery was about the same for everyone, whether or not anything had been done.

Another study revealed that when antibiotics are given for ear infections, especially on the first day of the onset of infection the disease isn't shortened by any measurable clinical standard. Antibiotics not only fail to cure the problem but they fail to prevent recurrence as well. In fact, recurrence rates were higher in children treated with antibiotic therapy.

Another common treatment for ear infections, is a typanotomy which is a surgical procedure that inserts a tube in the ear of a child. This operation is so common it is performed on 1.2 million times each year. A British study examined patients who had received the tube in one ear but not in the other. Researchers showed that the eardrum with the tube tended to develop scar tissue that had the potential of leading to future hearing loss while the untreated ear healed normally without any problem.

Chiropractic doesn't treat ear infections. However, when a chiropractor removes and corrects subluxations and nerve interference, it often corrects a chemical imbalance, unblocking nerve flow to the immune cells and inviting the body to respond with its own powerful immune system. An eighteen-year study of 4,600 cases of upper respiratory infections in a core group of one-hundred families found that when subluxations were noted in the upper neck area, ear infection occurred. When subluxations were removed, the infection cleared. If your children have ear infections, chances are they have nerve interference, and you need to get them to a chiropractor immediately for adjustments. When you do this, there is a good chance you will able to promote better health and also be to avoid adverse drug reactions, side effects and allergic responses from medical treatments.