Ear wax / infection

[SaraKate24]

Hi All

My 4 yr old daughter has had recurring ear infections, we did antibiotic drops and the high temps etc stopped but her ears were still bothering her.

So I bought a digital otoscope to have a look at them myself and they look full of wax to me, so I booked in to the doctors again.

They looked and said wax isnt too bad, but do another course of drops, we are 4 days in and I think her ears look worse, she keeps trying to put her fingers in her ears and keeps waking through night putting her fingers in her ears.

I’ve added some photos, just wanted another opinion, as likely need some ammo to go back to doctors if not resolved by end of drops which is in 2/3 days.

Ds had recurrent ear infections due to glue ear from 10 weeks old. The only thing that worked with him was grommets.

However they don't do grommets for ear infections, it's for hearing. If she hasn't had a hearing test, then request one. But do prepare to be horrified how little she is hearing. They adapt really well. Ds was lip reading, and learnt to read using subtitles, but only had 10% hearing at times.

What I would say, having had a look at ds' ears a couple of times, that wax isn't that bad. At times ds had pretty much the entire ear canal full, or the ear drum was bulging with pressure from behind, which was both painful, and normally caused the ear drum to rupture.

Ask the doctor about using olive oil to bring down the amount of wax as well. We often couldn't, due to his ear drum bursting, but it does help.

Ds had three lots of grommets, aged 20 months, 3.5 years and 6, and at 17yo still sees ENT because it was that bad, and he still had bad glue ear at 12yo, which is unusual.

Thank you so much for your reply, good idea with the request for a hearing test, she is constantly saying ‘pardon’ to me and asking me to repeat things.