Lingering ear infection for 2 weeks - tried dealing with it without antibiotics?

Nikhilrj

Hi,

Our 16 month old son started with an ear infection 2 weeks back. The doctor put him on Amoxicillin 14 days ago. Last Monday, as his condition had not improved and he also had viral bronchitis, they switched the meds to a shot of Rocephin followed by 7 days of Omnicef. The course ended yesterday. I am pleased to report that the viral bronchitis has been fully cured as per the doctor as of today but the ear infection which was observed as "bulging ear" last week is now shown as "still red".

Based upon this, the doctor was not sure if the ear infection is getting better or it is starting again due to a persistent bacteria. He recommended a 10 day course of Augmentin but also offered us a wait-and-watch approach for the next 3 days in the event the infection was indeed healing.

Have any of you also gone through such a scenario in which the ear infection has lasted that long? We are leaning more towards the "wait and watch" approach as our kid has been through a lot of antibiotics lately and would like to see if his immune system can now deal with the infection a bit more. Thanks in advance

RedDDD

we had this issue with our oldest and he had tubes at 10 months and then again just a week ago at 21 months.  We went through all the antibiotics you mentioned  and it would help but then the infection would come back about 10 days later.  If you wait be prepared for a very very cranky kid.  I would at least hit him with alternating tylenol and advil because the pain will become intense.  I would make an apt with an ENT and have him seen.  Is this the first ear infection or have there been others in the past?  When we brought my son in to the ENT I was surprised both times (10 months and 21 months) he could not hear clearly.  The tubes have really helped with keeping the infections at bay as well as developing his speech now that he can hear better.  GL!

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sschwege

We went through this once with DD.  They started with Omnicef at her recheck it did not clear so they did Amoxicillin at her next recheck it still was infected, did the Z-Pack and that finally worked though I think she still had clear fluid for longer than that.  Surprisingly it didn't bother her that much, she would complain about it from time to time but was still functioning pretty well.  

I would definitely opt for the wait and see approach.  Just recently they were kind of on the fence about treating DD's ear, even wrote the prescription but left it up to us whether to fill it.  We chose not to and it did go away on it's own. 

Meery82

We had issues with DS having recurrent ear infections. Antibiotics would clear the infection, but the fluid would remain and quickly reinfect. He had tubes put in and he's had no infections since.

beckcour

When she was 12 months old, my DD ended up with MRSA after three consecutive rounds of antibiotics. We couldn't finish the last round because she was vomiting. I would also recommend the watch and wait approach. We ended up with a 4 day hospital stay that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.