Now in my "golden" years, in beautiful downtown Catemaco, I have been battling my own recurrent ear problems. So I went to see a 350 peso specialist in San Andres, who after prescribing one of each medication available in local drug stores calmly told me to stay away from Catemaco water. I tried to abide by that, but after a week, my Popoluca requested that I sleep on the roof to protect her air quality.
Now I am stuck with a local doctor who proudly displays his sheepskin of being a graduate of the Swiss Institute of Tropical Medicine. He recommended I see his buddy, the local Belgian chiropractor, to have my neck adjusted, and told me that ear infections are very common in tropical climates. Do you want to know what I think of Swiss medicine?
My good local friend, fondly known as the Fool on the Hill, recommended his Zapotec wife's cure of their children's ear problems consisting of inserting a funnel of paper in the ear and setting it afire. I tried that, and the newspaper I used burned off much of my remaining hair, but it did diminish the ear problem, probably because I had to concentrate on third degree burns.
My native maid recommended I stick chilis in my ear, so I went to the street market and asked for ear chili. I never knew these damn things came in hundreds of shapes up to the size of bananas. The little ones she gave me came with instructions to moisten them before plugging into the ear. That didn´t work either.I had already tried my grandmother´s ineffective remedy of cotton balls with hot oil, so I went on the internet to seek relief.
I found a recommendation for vinegar and alcohol! Aha! finally a concoction to my taste. In consultation with my Swiss tropical medicine graduate I blended those two ingredients with liquid athlete's foot medication and some other ingredients and repeatedly dribbled the potion in my ear. I expected a miracle. WRONG!
So I decided to apply lots of alcohol internally. Now I have absolutely no problem.
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