Why Does My Child Keep Getting Ear Infections?
It’s story time at Peapod Family Chiropractic, stop me if you’ve heard this one before…
Your infant gets an ear infection. Doc puts them on antibiotics and it clears up. One month later, they have another ear infection. Doc prescribes another round of antibiotics and the ear infection clears up again. Yada yada yada…repeat this a few dozen times and we skip ahead to your child getting ear tubes and you guessed it, the ear infections stop. It’s smooth sailing until the tubes fall out and the ear infections return. Now, you have an infant or child that has undergone surgery and the problem never really went away.
Maybe you haven’t gotten to tubes yet and your little one is at Ear infection #2 right now. Maybe you’re wondering why your kid keeps getting ear infections. Maybe you don’t want tons of antibiotics and wonder if there’s an alternative solution (not just a band aid). If that’s the case, keep reading….
WHY & HOW EAR INFECTIONS OCCUR
Let’s chat about your anatomy and physiology (my inner nerd is jumping up and down right now!) So there are three basic parts of your ear. You have your outer ear (the part that you get pierced,) the middle ear (where ear infections typically occur) and the inner ear.
The medical term for the most common type of ear infections is acute otitis media. The main part that I want to stress is the tube that exists in the middle part of our ear called the eustachian tube. This tube allows fluid to drain from your ear down into your throat. Around that tube is a muscle called tensor veli palatini which controls how big our eustachian tube is. If there's lots of fluid, the muscle should open up to allow the fluid to drain out. Sometimes that muscle contracts and it doesn't allow anything to drain out which leads to, you guessed it, ear infections. The fluid in our tube creates this swamp in the middle part of the ear which acts like a breeding ground for bacteria. These bacteria continue to multiply. Then we start to have pain. Then we start to not be able to hear as well. Then we go to the doctor and they tell us everything is inflamed, you have an infection.
Most likely they’ll prescribe you antibiotics to treat the infection which basically kills everything in that swamp. So this is similar to if you have a pool or know about pool upkeep. Sometimes you have to dump a bunch of chemicals in the pool to get rid of everything so that it's safe to swim in and so that it doesn't turn into a swamp and it's called shock. You're just killing everything in the pool. That is what happens when you get antibiotics. It's killing all the bacteria, which is great. But the reason the bacteria was there is because we had a swamp. And so if the swamp stays there and the fluid isn't draining, then it just becomes another breeding ground for bacteria. This is where the recurring ear infection thing comes in. You're taking this "shock" (ie, taking these antibiotics) to kill all the bacteria and then the bacteria goes away, but the swamp doesn't. It would be like mosquitoes around the swamp. We can kill all of the mosquitoes, but if we don't get rid of the swamp and the reason why, the mosquitoes keep coming back and they're going to keep coming.
At this point you might be thinking, well, if this is what's happening to the tube, why don't we just put something in the ear to keep the tube open? That is exactly what inserting tubes in an ear does. It's attempting to take this eustachian tube that's closed, pry it open, which seems like a great idea because if the reason why we're having these recurrent ear infections is because the swamp isn't draining, forcing it open might allow things to drain. And a lot of the time this does.
The problem comes in when we have these tubes that fall out. So keep in mind, we still have this muscle that's contracting and wanting to keep the tube closed so it rejects the tube and out it comes. Then the swamp isn't allowed to drain anymore and the cycle starts all over. This is what happens a lot and is very common, but not normal.
HOW TO IMPACT & PREVENT EAR INFECTIONS
If you found this blog, you probably already know I’m a chiropractor so what I’m about to say should come as no surprise. Chiropractic care can impact ear infections. Now, Don't misunderstand me- Chiropractic is not a TREATMENT for ear infections. Chiropractic is not a treatment for anything. It doesn't even treat low back pain or headaches. It's not a treatment because if it were and you came to see me for a headache for example, I would automatically adjust the same segment and off you’d go. That's not the way that it works. If the ear infection or the headache or the back pain or whatever ailment that you are experiencing is a result of improper nervous system function, a lovely side effect of the chiropractic adjustment is those symptoms going away, but it is not a treatment.
When it comes to ear infections, the nerve that controls that muscle comes out right around the top area of your neck. And it is a very common area for subluxation. Subluxations are areas of nervous system interference due to misaligned vertebrae. And so if there is a misaligned vertebrae that's interfering with that nerve, it can artificially put that nerve into a stressed state. When it's in a stressed state, it says I need to go into spasm to cause protection. So what the chiropractic adjustment is able to do is restore that brain to body communication. It says, wait a minute, I'm actually not stressed out. I don't need to be in spasm. So then the muscle is allowed to relax, the eustachian tube is allowed to open, the ears are allowed to drain, and everybody goes on living a happy, normal life.
So if you or your kiddo are experiencing recurrent ear infections and you don't know why, if I was a gambling man, I would bet that they have a misalignment at the upper area of their spine. It's the most common area for misalignment, especially in kiddos, because birth trauma (c-section or vaginal delivery) puts a lot of pressure on that neck. The chiropractic adjustment allows us to get to the root cause of the problem instead of just treating the symptoms.
Interested in evaluating you or your family to prevent ear infections? Call or email us today!