A question about antibiotics and 18 mo dd

[SueBobby]

Recently DD had a chest and ear infection and was given a course of amoxicillin which cleared it up nicely.

However a week after finishing the course DD suffered a febrile convulsion during the night, her temp was 40.1. Doctors ran tests and found the reason was tonsillitus for which she was given another dose of antibiotics, this time penicillin.

She seems to have recovered well from the tonsillitus but has now developed a wheezing and 'ruckly' chest and bad cough which sounds to me like another chest infection (she suffers with them a lot, GP is monitoring for possible asthma). I am taking her to doctors tomorrow with her chest, but if they prescribe antibiotics again is she safe to have three courses in just over a month? It just seems a lot for such a little person.

I know her immunity system will be down after the other infections but I just feel so sorry for dd she is usually such a happy bouncy baby and was never ill from being born to turning one, then seems to have been struck down with one thing after the other.

Having the antibiotics is safer than not, especially if she has a chest infection.

On a side note is the GP treating her asthma symptoms?

He talked about DD having an inhaler the last time she had a chest infection, so will ask again and hopefully get one for her tomorrow.

She may be developing pneumonia, which without treatment could be very dangerous. Sometimes it is unfortunately safer to give several courses of antibiotics one after the other. She will be fine.

If you are worried about the impact of the antibiotics on her gut, then start giving her oat porridge for breakfast every morning. The BBC program Trust me, I am a doctor showed that six weeks daily porridge breakfast restores the balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. They found that it is more effective than probiotics.

As others have said it is safer than not having them three separate courses in 1 month is somewhere in the middle of amount of antibiotics.
At 5 months of age DD had 4 different types of antibiotics in a 5 day period and even then I was told she had not 'maxed out' on the antibiotics.

Thanks all, I know she needs them and would much rather her be better than not have them. Im just worried about her in general, she seems to just recover from one illness then starts with another.

Will see what the doctor says tomorrow.

My dd was on a low dose of antibiotics (amoxicillin) for nearly sixteen months, starting just under the age of one. The only additional precaution we were told to follow was to give her probiotic yoghurt every day. I would give the antibiotics, not giving them could be far more serious.

She'll be fine.
Ds started ear infections at about 10 weeks old.
It went along the lines of:
Day 1-2 beginning of ear pain. Day 3 at doctors get antibiotics (if he didn't his ear drum burst). Day 8-9 come off antibiotics. Day 10. All okay... repeat starting from day 1.
That went on until he had grommets in at 20 months.

So in any month he had roughly 3 lots of antibiotics for about 17-18 months.

The main long term problem with having so many antibiotics is that he's now (age 6yo) an expert in refusing them eyes yellow stain on the wall. He also knows he doesn't like the taste of any. Smartie bribery goes a long way.

Thanks all, well it turned out she didnt need antibiotics after all as Doctor had a listen to her chest and said it sounds clear

She did prescribe DD an inhaler though to help with her wheezing and breathlessness after coughing fits, she never mentioned asthma though just to see how she goes and if the inhaler helps at all. Does anyone know how an asthma diagnosis is made? Do they do tests?

Thank you

I totally get where you are coming from with the smartie bribery! DD liked the yellow amoxicillin but hated the penicillin, it was bright orange and frothed up in the syringe! I tasted it myself and it was pretty rancid, so we had milkybar buttons on standby