Haemophilus influenzae doing our head in

[Soniarc]

Literally searched everywhere but can’t see any posts about this - anyone else’s’ toddler had ear discharge that swabbed as Haemophilus Influenzae? It’s doing my head in.

My 17mo started getting discharge out of both ears after a heavy cold at the end of February. He doesn’t seem in pain with it at all. Since then we’ve had about five courses of oral antibiotics, five different lots of ear drops. He’s had 3 swabs of the discharge, the first and third came back positive for Haemophilus Influenzae.

We moved to private healthcare for it because the NHS had a wait list of 8 months for urgent ENT consultants. The private doctor has seen us twice and auctions out the discharge before giving us drops - this time we got given chloramphenicol and that seemed to work as the discharge stopped after a few days. I got my hopes up that we’d finally kicked it - u til we saw a bit more discharge today from one ear. We’ve got two more days left of the drops, though.

Has anyone ever experienced this? I’m confused as to how he could have Haemophilus if he had his HIB vaccine (he’s up to date on all vaccines). It’s been so long now that I just don’t know what else to do.

Vaccines aren't 100%? Just like covid jab mostly prevents severe illness but it doesn't prevent every single case of severe illness.

Re the HIb vaccine - this is for H influenzae B, the strain that could cause meningitis. There are other strains that can cause ear infections.

The vaccine prevents invasive HiB (bloodstream infection). The bacterium itself lives benign on the skin of lots of people, if it's in the discharge it might be the cause but it could just be a bystander.

Hard to know whether bacterial infection is truly what's going on, hope your doctors get to the bottom of it and/or the problem just goes away.

Thanks, all. I’m trying to learn as much as I can about it but there isn’t all that much online that isn’t HIB-related. I’m just extremely jaded after a horrific winter of being in AE many times due to temperatures of 42c, and never seemingly getting to the bottom of anything. We waited 8 months for his immunology appointment. The paediatrician looked him over and said he looked fine in April and referred us for bloods to be double sure - another 3 months wait for bloods. He’s got them at the end of June. We are doing the private doctor in parallel for his ear discharge - it’s just not stopped discharging since February.