Ear Infections

My son Tyler seems to have chronic ear infections. Starting at 7 months old when he had his first infection up until now at 20 months with his ninth. He has been on antibiotic after antibiotic. Not to mention how much Tylenol and PediaCare we have gone through. We found out he was allergic to amoxicillin when he was on his second round and broke out in hives. We even tried taking him to our chiropractor which is supposed to release some of the fluid. The chiropractor did help for a while, but the infections just keep coming back.

My husband and I learned how to predict whether Ty had an ear infection or not.

1. Tyler will be up on and off all night long screaming; this is not like Tyler, he usually sleeps through the night with no problems. When we go in his room and pick him up and rock him, he will go right back to sleep. However the moment you put him down, he wakes up screaming again. Repeat process as long as it takes.
2. Tyler is constantly picking at his ears and sometimes has scratches or scabs inside.
3. He has started to tell us his ears hurt and wants us to kiss them to make them better.
4. He acts up more often when his ears are bothering him. Tyler throws more tantrums, hits more and isn’t satisfied no matter what we try.
5. Ty stops eating. He refuses food and sometimes drinks.

Well after 9 ear infections (2 in the left and 7 in the right), 9 antibiotics, lots of Dr’s apts. And countless chiropractor apts. We decided to take him to an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat Specialist). The ENT, Dr. Mariotti suggested getting tubes in his ears. Tubes will allow the fluid that keeps getting re-infected to pass through to give Tyler some relief. The procedure takes about 2 minutes, 1 minute for each ear. Afterwards he we feel nothing, no pain, no recovery time, we just take him home.

Hopefully this will cure Tyler’s ear infections and give us some relief too. I will keep you updated!

TIP: I was recently talking with a friend about my son’s problem with ear infections and we were wondering if there was some kind of device that parents could buy to find out if their child had an ear infection before going to the Dr.’s. He sent me an email with a website for just that. It’s called Ear Check. Check it out!

http://www.earcheck.com