I can see you've had a bad experience with the practioner you visited. As I have said earlier on this forum, you do have to approach everyone, with open mindedness and a fair degree of caution. I know it's difficult when your suffering bad. I would always question on the first visit ( if not on the initial phone contact ) have they ever dealt before with this? This doesn't usually yield an open answer. They will usually try and side step the question by saying 'every case is different.' You can read that as meaning no they have'nt.
'Ordinary herbalists' are'nt much different. As they invaribly have'nt met this before, they all have very 'fixed' ideas about what they would do to correct it. They don't take very well to the patient telling them what to do!
We on this forum are a very unique bunch. We have first hand experience of sharing positive experiences of a few herbs and other things with each other. Some are more positive than others though. Everyone is different and no two cases of EP seems to be identical. The following is a few things you could try, depending on whether you believe you have an active infection / inflammation or just inflammation.
Echinacea tincture: an excellent natural antibiotic.
Bromelain: an excellent natural anti inflammatory.
Good quality Garlic supplement: good anti- fungal properties.
Fenugreek/Fennel tea: good if there is lymph system involvement/internal mucus type problem.