The Ear Infection from Hell

Sammy has had a rough time of it lately.  At the end of December, she had a high fever, a bad infection in her right ear, and periorbital cellulitis on the right side of her face.  She got intramuscular shots of antibiotic to help eliminate the cellulitis quickly and then she started a 10 day course of Augmentin.  Two days after stopping that course of Augmentin, Sammy had another fever.  Sure enough, her right ear was infected.  The nurse practitioner that we saw gave us another course of Augmentin.  She thought the first course of antibiotic helped Sammy because her cellulitis went away and while her ear was infected, it no longer had pus in it.  So she thought we just needed more time on the Augmentin.

Two days after stopping the second course of Augmentin, Sammy had another fever.  Oh hey - guess what - her right ear was still infected!  So her pediatrician put her on a 5 day course of Zithromax.  Sadly, 2 days after we stopped the Zithromax, she spiked another fever.  That was this past Tuesday night, after the regular doctor's office already closed.  Given her history, I didn't want to go through the night without getting her on antibiotics again so off we went to the Newton-Wellesley ER.  Sigh.  Three hours later, I walked out of there with another diagnosis of a right side ear infection (surprise surprise) and a prescription for Suprax.

Sammy had a persistent fever on Wednesday, but we thought we just needed to give the Suprax more time to work.  By Thursday morning, when Sammy still had a 101+ fever, we went back to the doctor.  The pediatrician looked at her ear and while it was infected, the ear drum wasn't bulging and it didn't look like an ear that had been infected for close to 6 weeks.  So she recommended that we give the Suprax one more day to work.  Except this morning, Sammy still had a 101+ fever, so off I went back to the doctor.  The same doctor looked at her ear and saw a noticeable improvement.  This time, Sammy's ear drum moved nicely when the doctor puffed air into it, which means there isn't a large amount of fluid behind it preventing movement.  So she thought Sammy was getting better on the Suprax and recommended against switching antibiotics at this time.  She even got a second opinion from a more experienced doctor because it was sort of weird that Sammy still had a fever even after 60 hours of being on the antibiotic.

But today, things started looking up.  12 hours after we last gave Sammy ibuprofen, her fever was only 99.6.  So I put her to bed with another dose of ibuprofen and I'm crossing my fingers she wakes up fever-free.  We're also going to head back to the doctor next Tuesday to double-check that her ear is improving.  I also have an appointment set up with the ENT on the 13th because of this persistent ear infection.  I don't want Sammy to have to get tubes, but if it means not going through this again, I'm all for it!  My poor little baby girl.