‘Can I use oil for my ear, doc’

In the clinic, I am often asked ‘ can I use oil for my ear?’ And which ‘oil is better- garlic, mustard (ugh!) or olive’. Many other home-grandma-remedies are also enquired about.

Perhaps the most foul infection of the middle ear I have encountered was a child whose ear was spat into-the the healer first eats ‘paan’ (betel leaf) with exotic herbs before the treatment! So many children have lost their hearing because the parents believed a famous faith healer from Mahim in Mumbai and put the froth from sea waves into their already perforated ears. It began a vile chemical reaction and worsened the infection.

Only recently a middle aged well to do businessman saw me in the clinic for pain and swelling of the ear. 6 weeks prior, ostensibly to treat long standing asthma,  he had twine inserted into the cartilage of his external ear by another popular traditional healer from Anand in Gujarat. He has had severe infection, fortunately in only one ear, has done several rounds of antibiotic and will probably need surgery.

Another young lady was taken to a ‘spiritual’ guru by her parents before her marriage to cure persistent headaches. She came to me with dizziness and hearing loss and a swollen ear. She was apparently slapped several times and there was a large perforation in the ear dum and damage to the nerve of hearing and balance. She needed immediate surgery and fortunately she recovered some of her hearing. The parents never saw me during the entire treatment- her sister accompanied her. She also confessed that she was sexually molested during the treatment.

So, then should one use oil in the ear? I tell my patients that in a humid city like Mumbai oil in the ear easily leads to obstinate fungal infection. I tell them that oil in a perforated infected ear can easily cause pus and more infection and in a non-perforated ear it reaches nowhere; the medicinal value of oil cannot penetrate intact skin. However if an obstinate elderly patient insists that nothing has ever happened for the past fifty years of putting oil in the ear then I relent; ‘one drop of warmed bland oil in the ear ‘ is acceptable so long as there is no perforation of the ear drum.

Prabodh Karnik