Ear Infections

If you follow me on facebook, you probably know the struggle we have had with Aidan's ear infections. The infections basically started after he turned 1, and have just been continuing since. Unfortunately, every ear infection that he has had since his 1st birthday, he shows NO signs or symptoms. That's NO tugging on his ears, NO fevers, NO fussiness. So how am I supposed to tell when he has them, and how many have gone missed because he never went to the doctor?

His first ear infection was when he was around 7 months. I remember when he was at home, he had some serious drainage from his right ear. I called my mom first to get her opinion about whether to call the doctor or not. I don't want to be one of those moms who ALWAYS calls the doctor when their kid starts coughing or anything. She suggest I call, so I did. We set up an appointment with the physician assistant since we couldn't get into the doctor. She couldn't even see the ear drum, but confirmed that he had a ruptured membrane and started him on antibiotics (Amoxicilin). This was his first ear infection.

I believe he may have had one other around 9 months, but it was minor, and gave him antibiotics just to cover any type of infection.

However, when we started seeing our new pediatrician in KC, he began having all sorts of issues with his ears. He saw his pediatrician for his 1 year checkup, and everything turned out just fine. In October, he started developing a croupy cough, so I called the doctor, only to find out that he had croup and an ear infection. We started antibiotics and steroids. Not even 30 days later, he went back to the doctor with yet another ear infection. His follow up appointment in December came back clear.

When we went in for his routine 15 month checkup, we found that he has another double ear infection. This is the 3rd new infection since his first birthday. We have switched up antibiotics and keeping an eye on him to see how everything turns out. At his follow up appointment, he came back clear.

We haven't been to the doctor since February, thank heavens! But, at his 18 month routine checkup, he has developed another double ear infection. Again, we did a round of antibiotics and made a follow up appointment. Well, the followup was today, and this time, he seemed to have gotten worse. He still has an ear infection in both ears. Now many have asked why we don't just take it upon ourselves to go see an ENT specialist. We have our reasons, as you will see. We have discussed our options with our pediatrician, and feel we are doing what is best for Aidan.

Our pediatrician is cautious about sending patients, especially little ones, to an ENT specialist right away. She believes that she has executed all of our options before sending us off to another doctor. We have tried several antibiotics: amoxicilin, augmentin, omnicef, and now zithromax. If the last antibiotic doesn't work, she will try augmentin again, even though Aidan experienced very runny stools and vomited once while on it (not to mention, it was like pulling teeth to get him to take it). If the augmentin doesn't work, then we will look into seeing a specialist down at Children's Mercy.

I as a parent, do not believe that getting surgery done for tubes is the best answer. Aidan is not suffering, and his ear infections seem to occur when he is ill to begin with. He may be having these ear infections due to a secondary infection, growth, and weather. And there is no one that smokes in my house either (as secondhand smoke is a major cause of frequent ear infections in little ones). I am very grateful that we have a doctor who is looking at the child and situation as opposed to sending us off to surgery at the first sign of an infection. We are hopeful that now that the weather is getting better and the viruses are mostly done going around, these ear infections will subside.

We have a follow up appointment with our pediatrician at the end of May. We are hopeful that we will have good news.