When I think of natural remedies, I think of all of those wonderful holistic remedies my grandmother used to use on us when we were children. She always had a cure and her cures always made us feel better. Everything that she had up her sleeve was all natural and could be found right in the kitchen cupboard. There were no pharmaceuticals ever used or suggested. It was pure and simple and pared with a lot of love.

Turns out that my grandma was on to something! When I grew up and had children of my own, I was lucky enough to have my grandmother around. She lived to the ripe old age of 102. She was healthy and her mind was intact. She died four years ago and I miss her everyday. There are so many times when I wish I could pick up the phone and ask her how to tweak a certain recipe or have her suggest a cure for a common ailment from which one of my children was suffering. I feel like I took the days when I could just pick up the phone for granted. Now they are gone.

But, I still have her memories and her recipes, sealed with love, in my heart and in my “toolbox” of remedies. And, I would like to share with you the most common one that helped us so much in so many situations.

This is one of the natural home remedies that I still use and will suggest to my children when they have children. It is completely natural and simple to prepare.

It is the use of garlic and olive oil for an ear ache. This is one of those natural remedies that seemed to work wonders on my children when they had a bad ear ache. They were never ones to have chronic ear aches as children, so they were at least 5 years old before I had to try to help them with an ear ache. I tried it for the first time when one of the kids awoke in the middle of the night in extreme pain. She was miserable and crying it hurt so much. I didn’t know what to do. It was the first time I was ever dealing with something like this and I couldn’t call a doctor or go to the drugstore because it was so late at night.

I remembered the natural remedy my grandmother had told me she used on my dad when he was a boy. So, I figured, “what have I got to lose!” at worst, it wouldn’t help, but at best, it would! So, I ran to the kitchen, got out a small frying pan and peeled and sliced two cloves of garlic. I then put them in the pan with enough extra virgin olive oil to just cover them. I heated the oil with the garlic just until it started to bubble slightly at the edges of the garlic. Then turned off the heat. The purpose is not to cook the garlic but to warm it slightly to release its antibiotic properties into the olive oil. This only takes a couple of minutes.

I turned off the heat and let the mixture cool completely. I placed several drops into an ear dropper and squeezed them into my daughter’s affected ear. Remember the mixture has to be cooled completely! After several minutes, she fell asleep. When she woke the next morning, she was pain free. I used the drops a couple more times that day but that was all that was needed. The ear ache was gone.

I have used this natural remedy many times on my children over the years. I am so grateful to my grandmother and hope she knows the impact she has had on my life.

While it was grandma’s recipe and it is all natural, it should not take the place of the advice of a qualified physician. This article is for informational purposes only. Please contact a naturopathic doctor before attempting yourself. It is the responsibility of the reader to seek proper medical advice.