Ear Infection Part Deux

Last night Ivan was inconsolable. About every three hours or so he would wake up screaming like he was in pain. I couldn't hold him to make him comfortable. Well the first time he woke up (around 8:30 or so) I gave him a bottle because he didn't finish his 'last' bottle of the day, he still had 2-3 ounces left of his last bottle, don't worry though I made him a new one. He chugged it down. But it didn't really calm him down. I held him, I put on some classical music, nothing seemed to work, until he finally feel asleep from screaming/crying so much. To me this seemed like a repeat of a couple of weeks ago where he did about the same thing. Also, I've already been told by the daycare workers that they thought he still had the ear infection.

Once I got to work this morning I called the doctor's office to make an appointment. Today happened to be our regular pediatricians day off so we got to meet the new doctor in the practice.

I go and pick Ivan up from daycare around 10 to take him. We get seen pretty quickly. I've got a couple of pictures while we were in the examination room waiting on the doctor.

Mommy why did you take out the camera?? I don't feel good

Ok, I'll play along for a minute or two..

Finally the doctor shows up. First impression is, she's seems super young. And she is, she is 30 just finished her residency, got married this past March, start with the pediatric firm in August. But at least there is another female doctor in the practice. Let's see where this goes. I start telling her everything Ivan was going through over the past couple of days since he finished the amoxicillin. He's progressively waking up more during the night and tugging on his right ear. To me that would suggest he either has an ear infection still or is teething pretty badly (I've read that tugging on an ear is a sign of teething, along with drooling, swollen gums..etc).

She suggests that it couldn't be an ear infection, that he has colic. Um, there have only been two times that he's cried all night long. This isn't a continual thing that happens every day. So do they diagnose babies with colic for every case of crying now, like they diagnose a lot of kids with ADHD. Now this isn't to suggest that most of those kids have those problems, but it seem like she was just using a catch all for his fussiness.

She finally looks at his ears...well what do you know...he STILL has an ear infection in his right ear. DUH! I think I can tell when my baby is in pain. To get rid of the ear infection she offers up another round of different antibiotics. An antibiotic that causes worse diarrhea than the amoxicillin. And if that doesn't work he gets a shot of antibiotic. I ask, can't he just have the shot now? Honestly I don't feel like dealing with symptoms worse than just an ear infection. He's already cranky as it is. She agrees that the shot would be fine. If he doesn't settle down his fussiness, then he gets to go back tomorrow and get another shot. Perfect, my kid is going to hate me. But let's get it over with.

Poor thing turned as red as a vine ripe tomato. Cried worse than the previous night. But I'm sure this will help him more in the short term. After we were done at the doctor's office we went to get some more infant tylenol. That made him feel better.

Here is a picture of his battle wound: (Notice the shiny bandage)

Overall right now he feels better. We did everything 'normal' tonight and he feel asleep ok, but he feel asleep.

I did ask how many ear infections does a kid have to go through until they get tubes in their ears (being the engineer I think of those things). She said it was a case by case basis. I just hope Ivan doesn't get anymore ear infections.