My two-year-old has a history of high fevers (as high as 40.5) that come and go and often are present for up to a week with a standard viral infection. We've taken him to see an immunity specialist who just felt it was 'first child syndrome'. However, because of the severity of his fever symptoms, he's been to A&E a few times and had several courses of antibiotics over the last year, most of which we realised afterwards were probably unnecessary.
Last week the whole family came down with a really nasty virus. As expected, he developed quite a high fever which has improved in the last couple of days but still hasn't gone completely (he's getting about 38, which is quite low for him, around twice a day, and at this point it's easily controlled by calpol and nurofen). Because I'm anxious I took him to our GP practice because of the fever length and predictably they prescribed him antibiotics on the basis that his ears were 'pink'. I explained that this (the fever length) can be normal for him and that I'm worried about antibiotic resistance, but the doctor didn't really take an interest in his history and just insisted that it's the protocol. They did however say that we could delay giving them for a day or so. I've looked this up on the internet and apparently most ear infections are viral and go away without antibiotics.
I obviously want him to get better quickly, but at the minute it looks as though he is improving. He's a bit pale and clingy and not completely back on his food (though he's eaten far more today and last night than before), but he no longer has a raging fever and the temperature for much of the week was easily explained by the virus - we know he definitely had it because he was extremely snotty and coughing.
My instinct is to be cautious but I also know that he can't just have precautionary antibiotics every time he has an illness. The problem is that every time a nasty virus goes around he automatically develops symptoms that cross the threshold for an antibiotics prescription.
Can anyone offer any advice?