To be suprised the DR wanted me to wait??

[cep]

My 2.5 yr old woke us up during the night with a scream, was awake for most of the night and was screaming/crying off and on all morning saying his ear hurt. Got an emergency appointment with the dr who agreed he had an ear infection but wasn't "acute" he then gave me a prescription but told me not to fill it for a day or two incase it went on it's own.

I'm sorry but my son has already spent most of the morning crying in pain, why would it be reasonable to expect him to put up with it for another day or two??? AIBU to be surprised by this??

Pour a small amount of olive oil into a cup and microwave it to just a bit above warm (not hot). Then get a syringe/dropper and with him lying on his side, with the sore ear facing up to the ceiling, drop 3 or 4 drops of oil into his ear. He may yelp, but its just the shock of it in his ear (i have done this to myself to check!). Get some tissue or cotton wool to soak up the spill out. Its amazing, it has been the only thing that works for us.

NEVER NEVER warm olive oil or anything else before putting it in the ear! Lots of nasty burns to the eardrum result from people doing this. A hot water bottle wrapped I a towel and held against the ear is a safer and more effective way to ease earache.

Also pneumoccocal meningitis vaccine helps prevent ear infections.

That's what his specialist told me at his last appointment, he had hearing tests done, asked how many words he says in one go, 3/4 word sentences etc. Last 2 appointments he'd had glue ear, consultant told me that as he was speaking fine and as his hearing tests were fine they wouldn't need to put in grommets and that they don't tend to unless it's affecting their speech and hearing.

Am feeling abit guilty/silly for getting the antib's now. :) have only given him one dose should i leave it then and just rely on painkillers? and see what happens?

Also you shouldn't be putting non sterile liquid in your ear while you have an infection and possibility of a burst eardrum

CEO once you've started antib's you must finish the course

*cep

Thankyou everyone I feel alot better about it now.

I'm assuming that as it was an emergency appointment he just didn't have the time to run through it all with me, obviously just assumed i knew about the whole painkiller thing.

Anyway thank you for all the advice. I need to get said ds to bed now, hopefully he'll sleep better tonight.

Hope he starts feeling better soon, ear infections are rubbish, and hope you manage some sleep tonight, its rubbish when they're ill. I have 3 ill kids this week so feel your pain!

YANBU. The advice was correct but not well communicated. Antibiotics make little difference to most infections and have lots of complications.

I would give 3 hrly alternating calpol and nurofen and see how it goes. I would NOT put olive oil in the ear for anything other than ear wax and dry skin - it could make an infection worse.

Oooh grief Memoo you poor thing, 1's bad enough :) have #2 on way hadn't even thought about them both being ill at the same time. (this is the closest i could think of for a scared face.)

Thanks amijee.

hulababy I went to my gp with dd earache and that is exactly what she suggested
it was quite a nasty infection and she gave me an ab prescription as weekend backup
but that is to fight the infection not the pain
in the end dd's system fought it off without abs and the neurofen sorted the associated pain
yabu

hope he's betten soon op, earache in children is horrible

DD had repeated abs for ear infections. On holiday in France we were given acetyl cysteine for sinusitis/ear problems. We used to buy it in 10s of boxes for when we came home. She only had abs in the next 5 years for ear infections, and we avoided grommets. We used to give it every time she had a cold as a preventative.

It's also sold as a nutritional supplement. It's available, but only on prescription.

Fingers crossed it is short lived, can't stand seeing him in pain, was the first time he was able to actually tell me it hurt, don't know if it the pg hormones but the fact he actually told me it hurt made me want to cry.

He said it didn't hurt tonight and it was when he was next due for pain meds, i gave them anyway as bed time, but am hoping that i might have been over reacting a bit and that it's already fading. In which case i'll be too relieved to be embarrassed. :o

Hope he's okay. FWIW, GPs are under so much pressure to NOT prescrube antibiotics because over use of them has contributed greatly to the rise of 'superbugs' - MRSA and CDiff etc. Hence the advice to always finish the course - the bugs can overwhelm the effect of antibiotics and mutate into DIFFERENT bugs.
Which is what he SHOULD have explained to you, along with recommending ibuprofen as a more effective painkiller. And also just to clarify that antibiotics CAN have an effect on the level of pain caused by an infection if the infection is sensitive to those antibiotics. For example achest infection can cause pleuitic type pain and once the appropriate antibiotics kick in, the pain can be greatly reduced.

Thanks sassybeast, i have started the antib's now so i will finish them, But i think in future i'll just stick with pain killers unless it's horrendous or goes on for a while.

I am a natural worrier though so tend to doubt that what i'm doing is actually right or not.