...and one of them is that fevers, vomiting, and ear infections in kids always have a nack for showing up after 5pm! After leaving the home of one very sweet little boy tonight, who's late-night ear ache was yet one more piece of evidence supporting my theory, I was inspired to post a few things about ear infections. Here you go:
- The #1 sign of an ear infection in a verbal-aged child? The complaint of isolated ear pain. That may sound ridiculously obvious, but it's absolutely true. A cold can cause some ear plugging and pressure, but there's usually no difference between sides. An ear infection, however, tends to cause severe pain, isolated to the side of the infection, often so severe that the child awakens from sleep in tears. One little girl I saw recently described the pain as something "drilling in my ear." If you're an adult who has had one of these gems of an infection any time recently, you can appreciate how spot-on that little girl was with her description of how awful the pain is.
- The #1 sign of an ear infection in a pre-verbal child? It's anybody's guess. That's not a lie. Ear tugging, fussiness, fever, decreased appetite - none of these symptoms are reliable indicators of an ear infection - it's impossible to predict without having their eardrums examined. There are also always those stories of people who's children are examined for an entirely different reason, and are found to have an ear infection, much to their shock and amazement. It happens!
- Risk factors for repeated ear infections include: age under 2, having family members who smoke, being in group daycare, bottle-propping, and poorly controlled allergies.
- Treatment of ear infections in a pre-verbal child consists of a standard course of antibiotics. For older children, if the pain is mild and manageable with OTC pain-relievers, it's perfectly acceptable to watch and wait without giving antibiotics. The theory here, is that if a child is verbal enough to reliably localize and express their pain, they'll be able to tell you if it's getting worse, in which case you could start the antibiotic at that point. Not everyone chooses to go that route, though, and depending on the severity of the infection, the child's previous history, and other factors, your doctor may choose to treat your older child's ear infection with an antibiotic immediately, instead of waiting.
For more information on ear infections, here's a link to a more in-depth article:
http://www.parents.com/baby/health/ear-infection/what-you-need-to-know-about-ear-infections/?page=3
No comments:
Post a Comment