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Slapped cheek? Ear infection? GP or not?

2 replies

CoalCraft · 11/12/2022 19:56

So for the past few days DD2 (4 months) has had cough, sneezing, runny nose and increased fussiness (as well as insane gassiness but I think that's just from swallowing mucus + crying (, then yesterday developed a temp of 38.2. Her older sister has caught yet another cold thanks to nursery, so put it down to that and managed with Calpol, fine.

Then today I noticed that there was quite a bit of discharge from one ear, and that her cheek on that side had gone bright red and was warm to the touch. My first thought was ear infection but it wasn't loads of discharge and since cleaning it about 7 hours ago it hasn't come back so doesn't seem to be ongoing. Also, doing some Googling, it doesn't seem like ear infections do cause the face to go red really? What did come up is slapped cheek syndrome, which fits all the symptoms except that it doesn't seem to cause ear discharge? It is just one cheek though. Also we haven't been around anyone with it as far as I know so not sure where she could have picked it up, unless her sister could have it without the actual red cheeks?

Both conditions are apparently "wait and see" anyway with no need to contact GP for a few days, so I guess I can just keep managing with Calpol for now, but the uncertainty is making me unsure. I guess if I knew what it was for certain I'd be fine, but...

Just wondering if anyone's experienced ear infection with red cheek or one-sided slapped cheek with (quite mild) ear discharge? And whether you think I should ring GP tomorrow?

OP posts:
Ostryga · 11/12/2022 20:13

With a 4 month old always better to be safe than sorry. With discharge I would probably call 111 now and see if you can get an out of hours gp appointment. She’s probably fine but when they’re so little it always pays to err on the side of caution.

Hope she feels better asap!

CoalCraft · 11/12/2022 20:35

I did ring 111 a bit earlier but the automated answer machine said it would be a two hour wait for an answer. Never seen anything like it, longest I've had to wait before is five minutes!

There's been no further discharge and her temp hasn't gone back up since her last dose of Calpol eight hours ago so I'm not super worried about her. Am thinking I will ring GP in the morning though just to check. They're always very good about seeing little ones same day.

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