What You Need to Know About Kid Ear Aches
Posted on 02 19, 2009 under The Manual by Noodad | Comments
It’s the lovely month of February: a time when the tissue boxes come out and the flip flops and sandbox toys are a distant memory. With cold weather comes sickness, and with sickness typically comes infection.
One of the most common infections with kids is in the ear. This is basically due to the buildup of fluid and pressure around the eardrum. This happens more in kids because their eustachian tubes are shorter and thus, when the tube gets inflamed and builds up with fluid, you got yourself an ear infection.
But what do you do when your kid has an ear infection and is screaming bloody murder from the pain? There are a few things you can do before you get your kid diagnosed and pumped full of antibiotics.
- Apply a cold wet washcloth to the outer ear for 20 minutes at a time. This will essentially numb the ear and reduce the pain.
- Ear drops or if you don’t have the handy, olive oil can be used to alleviate pain as well. In case you are wondering, any level of virgined olive oil can work.
- If your kid is old enough, give them a piece of gum. Chewing gum will reduce the pressure inside their ear.
- If your kid is like mine was last weekend and laying down makes things worse, sit them upright. This will help further reduce the pressure.
- Give your kid ibuprofen like Motrin to ease the pain until the heavy hitting antibiotics show up. You can have your kid on both at the same time. Antibiotics to address the infection and ibuprofen to ease the pain and reduce the fever.
Ok, now for the real scary part. You may think gunked up ears are nasty and it may be horrible to see your kid in pain but if the pain stops you may not be out of the woods. If you are noticing severe pain and then no pain at all, your kid’s eardrum may have ruptured. Call the doctor immediately.
Ear infections are very common and easily treatable. But ear pain could also be caused by some other factors like pieces of cotton left over from a recent QTIp adventure. Or leftover soap of shampoo from a bath. Make sure you leave those factors as an option.
In addition, smoking has also been found to cause ear aches in kids. Either you are smoking in front of your kids which means you are committing child abuse, or you live near a volcano. Yeah, try to avoid that.
For more information on getting ear tubes because of frequent ear infections, read our article here.
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