Do you think you should be writing medical advice?
Ear infections are dangerous. My nurse friend decided she didn’t need to go to a doctor for her ear pain (nurse knows best). A few days later two burst eardrums, blood running from ears. Fixing ear infections without losing hearing ability is a wonder of modern science. Good parents don’t risk their children going deaf.
The answer to bad doctors is not “don’t go to the doctor”.
The answer is to go to a good doctor.
It takes time and effort to find a good doctor. Worth the investment since health risks are very high expected personal costs. Or you are spending X% of your salary on health insurance, so the implication is that you should invest significant time and effort to get a good doctor.
Same with house purchases: treat that like a fucking degree you must learn, otherwise you are just gambling with quality years of your life (the extra years you work to buy a bad decision, the quality of life of the years you spend living on a property).
Either learn doctor and property knowledge (if you have the capacity to do so), or learn how to choose the right people to help you. Anything else is rolling the dice with your life and the lives of those you care for.
You misunderstand a doctor's role in your medical journey. Trying to find the mythical good doctor who will absolve you of any thinking is a path filled with failure. You need to take responsibility yourself and consult with different medical professionals if needed. Hoping to find the one good doctor who will put your interests above themselves and with the ability to battle with the insurance companies on your behalf is going to lead to a poor outcome for yourself.
Either learn doctor and property knowledge (if you have the capacity to do so), or learn how to choose the right people to help you. Anything else is rolling the dice with your life and the lives of those you care for.
That was the last sentence I wrote: I am explicitly saying to learn as much as reasonable and implicitly saying not to blindly trust doctors where possible. You appear to be avoiding answering the points I made and appear to have misunderstood what I wrote.
> ability to battle with the insurance companies
You are assuming I am in the USA: I am not. The USA health system is uniquely broken, and New Zealander’s don’t have the same problems that American’s have.
One of the reasons why antibiotics are somewhat ineffective against ear infections is because the bacteria develop biofilm that makes it difficult for both the immune system and treatments to reach that area.
Xylitol nose spray can help along with a humidifier and rubbing behind the ear to sort of try and disrupt the biofilm colonies.
Anecdotally I've also had great success with a supplement called X-INFX (and I've tried quite a bit including various antibiotics to no avail).
As far as preventative measures, keeping the inner ear dry with a quick dab of toilet paper or a little ear dryer pump goes a long ways.
It also helps if you get an ear cleaner, just in case you have hardened wax. For whatever reason, an ear infection sometimes causes wax to build up inside (which is a like a sticky conveyor belt your body uses to "churn" out debris and pathogens).
I make no judgement about whether or not to use antibiotics since that's not my expertise and I'm not a doctor. I'm just simply offering adjunct treatments that have historically worked for me and others.
