 [ Symptoms ] i live on the east coast where deer ticks are a problem will not bug repellent be enough to ward off the ticks  i do not want to wear long sleeves and long pants in the summer [ Disease ] long before antibiotics there were mothers and grandmothers putting heat on an earache was a standard of home care in this era when you put heat on an ear or put warm oil in the ear canal another home treatment when a child has a middle ear infection it can cause the eardrum to rupture this will cause fluid pus to drain out of the ear and the reduced pressure will relieve the pain then of course you now have a draining ruptured eardrum to deal with a ruptured eardrum may be nature is way of curing an ear infection but it is probably not the most ideal situation some ruptured eardrums take weeks or months to heal depending on their size and location but they do eventually heal in the vast majority of cases so it is okay to use the heat but this process may cause an eardrum rupture something that helps and what i have used for my son who has had constant earaches since birth is to dampen a washcloth with water place it in the microwave just enough to get hot without drying it out probably about 15 30 seconds check often until it is almost too hot to hold then place another wash cloth over the hotwet one so as not to burn the skin and lay the ear on top of it the point of doing this is to allow some moist heat into the ear for comfort and possibly loosen and drain the ear they do make over the counter earache drops i think in the children is section but it is just to ease pain not clear infection so if it is severely infected it will be best to get some antibiotic and they will usually prescribe some stronger drops as well **something my grandmother had done when she was little was for a smoker to blow cigar or cigarette smoke in the affected ear and my father in law told me that a neighbor who was nursing would squirt breast milk in his ear for infection and it would help him