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    Well that didn’t work…

    Guess who has a double ear infection. Again. Yeah, the little one. So we’re back on an antibiotics course for 10 days. We’re kicking off with Augmentin since that was the last antibiotic that worked. Except this time this little stinker wants no part in taking his medicine. He’ll still take infant Tylenol fine, but the Augmentin? Not if it was the last liquid on earth. But oh the things we’re trying.

    S took S2 to the pedi appointment and picked up the prescription on the way home. Except for the fact he didn’t know to get it flavored. My bad, I always do, I just never thought to mention it.

    With that first dose you’d think we were trying to get him to drink castor oil (although, in full disclosure I have never tried either castor oil or this medicine). He drank about an milliliter of it and then spit city kicked off. I don’t think he actually took more than than first mL.

    So off S and I took the medicine back to the pharmacy to get it flavored. Try 2? Same effect. I ended up wiping up more medicine than he consumed.

    Try 3 involved food dye. Little stinker has the memory of an elephant, and I was thinking that maybe he was associating the color as the yucky medicine and just wasn’t willing to give it a chance. ‘Cuz the pink Tylenol he took without problem. I went yellow. Sure I could’ve created a master-piece of pink, but I didn’t want to jeopardize the success we’re having with Tylenol and have him think ALL pink medicine is gross. I’ll stop now and tell you that coloring it didn’t help any either.

    Try 4 involved me sitting on him, shoving my finger in his mouth and holding his tongue down so he couldn’t push the medicine forward and out of his mouth. Him not having all his teeth in actually helps. But he actually drank about 75% of his dose. Side effects, however include a gnawed-on index finger on my end (from the teeth he does have chomping down on me) and one kid that is plain mad at me. I am now the bad guy for administering said medicine, and I received the cold shoulder all day. Daddy was king. I gotta tell you, this hurt, but I don’t blame him: I dished out abuse and he retaliated by telling me I’m no longer #1 on his list.

    Try 5 repeat of try 4.

    Try 6 was me calling in the infantry and having Ms. S from daycare do the medicine deed. She had him drink it, but with no better luck than S and I.

    I have now reached out to S2’s pedi to ask him for an alternative to the medicine. And an ENT referral. I am very ready to talk tubes if that’s the right next step. I am a little worried if he gets tubes he won’t be allowed to go to swim class for awhile. S2 loooves to swim. Seriously, he’s such a happy clam in the water and I hate to take it away from him, but I guess if I have to decide between healthy ears during critical speech development and swimming, I’ll opt for healthy ears. I guess we’ll see what we’re told.

    P.S. I’ve been prophylactic-ally been giving S2 olive oil in his ears when colds pass through. I don’t know how much it helped during the last cold, but it certainly didn’t hurt anything. Clearly missed this event. I’m also thinking I need to shove a clove of garlic in my little olive oil dispencer, as I’m reading that garlic has much more therapeutic qualities to this end. You can tell I’m willing to try (almost) anything, right?

    3 responses to “Well that didn’t work…”

    1. Marianne says:

      This sounds brutal. I am so sorry.

      My friend/lactation consultant is an herbalist and she creates awesome products. This ear oil might work better than your olive oil: http://www.sweetherbmedicinals.com/products/Ear-Oil.html

      You can order online or pick it up in Campbell (Tiny Tots or Harmony) if you’re in the area. Good luck!

    2. KirstenPfleger says:

      Have you tried chiropractic? Apparently one of the benefits of having unfused cranial bones is that the temporal bone rotates when the baby opens and closes his mouth. This rotation helps to drain their horizontal ear canals (they become angled when they get older. If his temporal bones are stuck it is harder for the ears to drain normally, so more ear infections.

      We took Serenity in when she was newborn because we were having latch issues (can’t open your mouth as wide when they are stuck). Made a big difference for that. Don’t know if it has actually helped with ear infections, but she hasn’t had one.

      I know a great infant chiropractor up here, not that that is convenient for you!

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