Repeated antibiotics

[Ourbabyava]

Hi so some background on our daughter, she is 3 in January, about a year ago her breathing started to be very noisy and sounded like it was obstructed, she got diagnosed with very enlarged tonsils and over the first half of this year has been on antibiotics probably around 10 times for tonsillitis. It was so horrible hearing her breathing like it and everytime it got really bad we took her to GP and they put her on them and they seemed to help. In the summer she had a few weeks where it actually improved and we started to think maybe they were giving antibiotics to her too easy, and since then the bad breathing has come in waves without having any antibiotics, she is due to have her tonsils out soon. Just recently she has had antibiotics again for 2 chest infections and now just been prescribed again for an ear infection, we are so worried about how many she has had and read not only about antibiotic immunity but also the negative impact they can have on gut bacteria and even increasing risk of illness. GP just shrugs any questions off but could her health be permanently affected by having so many?

Thanks for any thoughts

Oh bless her. Please go get her seen ASAP. I had this with my son. How many lots of antibiotics has she been on now? If she's being sick that's not good. What colour are her stools? Is she having diarrhoea?
Antibiotics my son's GP said can cause stomach cramps to do with the lymphnodes as well as making children lose appetite and not eat. When my son was on them he just didn't eat for a week and weight was dropping off him. We had to give him paedisure and milkshakes to try and increase his weight as he was in 1-1 1/2 yr old underwear when he was 3 1/2.
I'm so sorry your daughter is so poorly.

@ourbabyava have a Google of c-diffile. Does she have these symptoms? If she does take her to A and e. My son had them and got checked. Thankfully he didn't but scared me so much.

She's had at least 10 courses of antibiotics this year, her poos are fine, been to docs this morning and they aren't concerned just think it's antibiotics causing sickness. Weren't concerned about weight either but told us to talk to health visitor. Since June her weight has fluctuated around 14.5-14.8 kg but last night is now 14.1.

I think its fairly typical to lose weight when ill and more when there's sickness. My daughter typically loses 0.2-0.3kg for a cold. I had a migraine last weekend and was sick and nauseous for 18h and lost a kilo! I most of it was just the loss of food and fluids and I was back at my normal weight 3 days later. Do keep an eye on to though. Sounds like your wee one is going through a tough time. X

It's much better not to take antibiotics for tonsillitis, unless it goes on for ages. If her body can fight the infection or virus itself, it's less likely she'll get it again. I really avoid antibiotics myself and same for kids. They are so awful for your gut. make sure she has a very varied and healthy diet with lots of fermented foods.

She hasn't really been off her food much recently but yea sickness yesterday may have affected a bit. With the antibiotics we were guilty of letting them give her them everytime her breathing got bad while asleep as it was awful to listen to her, plus they encouraged to get it on record everytime to build a case for the op. But we did get to the point in the summer that we decided we aren't going docs with it unless she seems unwell and has white spots on tonsils. But then last few weeks she has picked up a couple of chest infections and an ear infection which has caused them to give antibiotics again

That's a lot. Are they giving anything stronger than amoxicillin? I found after my DS had had 9 lots of it, it didn't work anymore and he needed stronger ones. In the end I asked if there was an alternative to oral ones as he'd had 12 lots in under 9 months so he got given ear ones.

How old is your daughter?

Hi she is 3 in January. She has had a few different ones, amoxicillin, clarithromicin, erithromycin, there was a stronger one they gave her once that was only a 3 day course but can't remember the name of it

Oh bless her. That's a lot for her at such a young age. Is there a date for surgery yet? My DS was on clarithomicin as well and gave him bad tummy cramps, white stools and made him feel sick. He vomited from that one. Only on it 3 days.

Sending hugs. It's so hard seeing your little one constantly unwell. Make sure you're taking care of yourself as well. I know I didn't and had to keep reminding myself and being reminded by friends to. 🫂

To be honest we have been quite lucky in the sense that most of the time she hasn't seemed very ill. But it's the worry of what the high amount of antibiotics has done. Spoke to doctor today and asked what it could have done and they said its not ideal but won't have done anything but that doesn't correspond to the articles of research done on the effect they have on gut health