Antibiotics

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euxene

New member
Opinions on amoxicillian for a 7 month old. My 2 older daughters have strep and double ear infections. They are 8 and 7. However I took my 7 month old to the same nurse practioner because he has had a hoarse cough and pulling at his ear. she said that his throat looked fine but one ear was a little red. However she went ahead and said she would prescribe him amoxicillan because he was exposed. This sounded a little silly to me and also has my anxious since we've never even given him a pain reliever.
 
@puddintain The nurse is not his regular pediatrician I only took him to her since I couldn't get into his pediatrician. Also I was just wondering she never said ear infection she only said redness
 
@euxene I would make an appointment with your pediatrician ASAP. Like today or tomorrow. You can’t just not give antibiotics if needed but if there’s not an infection then I would be questioning giving it. It sounds like this lady may not have given you a clear diagnosis. There’s NOTHING wrong with questioning the NP.

If not today go to urgent care or ER and demand a pediatrician.
 
@prodigalredeemed It is practical and good ethical practice to prescribe empirically for over 2 years old. My reasoning is that this is a little baby with sensitive gut flora. It is known that amoxicillin is not gentile broad spectrum. It does it’s job! The mistake would be to WAIT to confirm infection. That would be worse. She should go today or the absolute latest tomorrow!
 
@euxene A nurse practitioner is different than a regular nurse. The NP you saw is able to prescribe meds and treat an ear infection the same way your Ped would. I see no reason not to follow her instructions.
 
@euxene Sounds right to me. In children less than 2yo, with erythema of tympanic membrane and ear tugging it is treated as bacterial infection as risk of not treating is greater than possible over prescription of antibiotics or complications of progressing infection
 
@euxene This is an issue I ran into with our ped that made me switch to another practice. My son had a “little bit of a red ear” and was tugging but no fever or other symptoms. We went in for a well check. She was adamant we should move forward with amoxicillin. I had a second opinion by an urgent care PA and she disagreed with the ped. The current recommendations for acute otitis media are a watchful waiting approach for 48-72 hours prior to initiation of antibiotics (as long as the child has no other severe symptoms). I chose not to do antibiotics and we did a recheck in 3 days with the PA and his ear was better. I strongly feel pediatricians overprescribe antibiotics. When I asked more questions to our ped, she told me she will only watch and wait in kids over 3 who can tell you if their ear hurts. That isn’t evidence based. I am NOT against antibiotics and if he was eating or sleeping poorly or acting generally sick + had a red ear and tugging, I certainly would have done the medication. Or if his ear or symptoms had gotten worse in those 3 days we waited.
 
@sosparis16 Thank you for this. I did end up calling his regular ped today and they told me to go ahead with the antibiotics. I'm sorry I'm just hesitant to give my children anything right off the bat and I'm someone who like to wait a little to see how symptoms develop. My older children can complain about their ear one day and then the next day they be fine.
 
@euxene I'll be honest... we are a non vax household but when it comes to ear infections and strep I have zero problems with giving my kids antibiotics. Both infections can get worse quickly, and they are extremely painful. I am not going to watch my kids suffer. There's a huge difference between giving antibiotics for things like colds then there is for infections.
 
@z_alan_bridges Honestly was just asking because I felt weird because the np never said ear infection she just said a little red. My older kids are on the antibiotics so I don't have a huge problem with it but she made it sound like she was prescribing them just to do it for shits and giggles.
 
@euxene Did you try the over the counter earache drops? I'm not sure the age you can use them, but recently I was sick and my ear hurt and it helped the pain immediately and I didn't have any more issues with my ear after
 
@z_alan_bridges I didn't. I thought about using a dropper and putting my breastmilk in it however I did get ahold of our ped and he told me as well to go ahead and do the antibiotics
 
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