Tyler has a double ear infection.

There’s a bit of history here that you should know about. He had grommets (tubes) put in when he was 18 months old. You can read all about it here. And here. And here.

Since the surgery, things have been pretty good. One of the grommets fell out after about 9 months (bummer!) and he got a couple of mild ear infections after that, but thankfully they cleared up on their own. I say thankfully, because Tyler doesn’t respond well to antibiotics. Probably because he was on them constantly for the first 4 months of his life due to repeated urinary tract infections. He eventually had an operation to fix that problem, but in the meantime he’d built up somewhat of a resistance to the normally prescribed children’s antibiotics. Stink, huh?

Anyway, Tyler has had 4 colds in the last 6 weeks. We had taken him to the doctor sometime during cold #1 or #2, just to check his ears. One of them looked a bit “dull” so we had to keep going back every couple of weeks to check it. Rob took him on Monday, and it was still looking dull. The doctor gave us the usual line: bring him back in 2 weeks, or earlier if he gets another cold. The next day, he got cold #4. So it was off to the doctor the next day. One of his ears looked normal, and the other one was “just starting”.

The doctor wanted to take a watch-and-wait approach, so we had another appointment 24h later. As soon as she saw Tyler the next day (yesterday), she said “He’s full of beans!” (he was!) and “I’m sure his ears will be fine, but we’ll just have a quick look”.
She almost fell off her chair when she looked at his ears. The one that was normal on Wednesday was “absolutely horrible” and the one that was “just starting” was even worse! Oh, and the second grommet has fallen out (bummer again!) She was shocked that he was so bright and chirpy, and had slept all night! Well, that’s what both my boys have been like with their ear infections. I’d never know if I didn’t make the doctor’s surgery my second home!

He’s now on antibiotics. The doctor agreed that we wouldn’t even *try* the usual ones (aka the ones that never worked in the past). Instead, we’d pull out the big guns. Augmentin. The diarrhoea started less than an hour after his first dose. Nice.

Now we have a hard decision to make. Do we get the grommets put back in?
The doctor said if this infection is recurrent, or if he gets another one before winter/spring is over, then we probably should get them put back in. But she’s hoping that we can get him through the winter months without any more. And by the time next winter rolls around he’ll be almost 4 and his eustachian tubes will be bigger. That’s what happened with Ethan, he grew out of them before he turned 4.

I really don’t want to go through another operation.
He’s had 2 already, and he’s not even 3! It was traumatic enough last time, and he wasn’t really old enough to know what was happening then. At age 3, I shudder to think about how he’d handle it.
So I’m thinking of looking into some alternative therapies, if necessary. A few things have been recommended to me: Bowen therapy, tea tree oil, ear candling, echinacea, cranial osteopathy, homeopathic ear drops, etc.
I’m the kind of person who needs to research things well before trying them. I’m also the kind of person who believes in the power of prayer. So if you’re a believer, have a word to the Big Guy for me.
He’ll be listening.

In other news, Sharon has given me the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award! Thanks, Sharon!
I’m not going to nominate anybody this time, as quite a few people on my blogroll have already received this award. Besides, I found it hard enough choosing recipients for the “Nice Matters” award, and I’m worried that I upset some of the people I didn’t choose!