Children And Earaches
What is an "earache"?
An earache is when your child complains that their ear hurts, and it can be due to many different things. Teething can cause referred pain to the ears, so you'll see younger children grab their ears and pull them because of this earache. Around three months and beyond children start finding their ears for the first time, so they do tend to grab them and pull them, causing earache again. This has nothing to do with an ear infection, it's more that they are finding this body part and to them it's self soothing. Also, dry skin that is often around the back crease of the ears can be irritating, and a lot of children will grab their ears and pull them because of this. So you want to look to see if there are other causes of the earache before jumping to the conclusion of an ear infection.
How can I tell if my child has an earache?
When a child has an ear infection, or earache, you'll know because they won't just be grabbing and smiling, or falling asleep while pulling their ears. But, they'll be really fussy and seem like they're in pain. And often ear infections and earache come along with other symptoms like a cold, congestion, a cough, or fever. Those are some of the ways we can tell if a child has an ear infection.
How do I treat my child's earache?
The recommendations on ear infections have actually changed recently. It used to be that any ear infection we treated with antibiotics. But nowadays, what we do is we often wait about forty-eight hours to see if the ear infection will go away, because some viral ear infections will just go away on their own, and don't need antibiotics. So, how do we tell? If your child is up all night screaming, saying that their ear hurts, they have high fever, they come in here and we a bulging, red ear with pus behind it, that's an ear we're going to treat because we know they're going to feel better tomorrow morning, and you're going to feel better tomorrow morning. And after twenty-four hours of antibiotics, most children start feeling better, but the course of the antibiotics, again, is usually around ten days. If you came in just because you have a cold, or even a well-visit, and we happen to see an ear infection, but your child's not complaining about it, that may be a time when we say, "You know what? Let's just wait and couple of days and see what happens." It may just go away, but if they start waking up in the middle of the night and complaining, or developing fever, then we'll look at it again and see if we need to do antibiotics.
What is "swimmer's ear"?
Swimmer's ear is actually an ear infection, but it's an outer ear infection. There are two types of ear infection; inner ear infections, which are when you get fluid, bacteria, and redness behind the tympanic membrane in the inner ear, and then outer ear infections, which are commonly referred to as "swimmer's ear." This is due to water getting in the ear. The water evaporates and causes drying of the skin of the outer ear; and as the skin of the outer ear keeps drying, it thin and thins, and as it gets thinner it makes it more likely that bacteria can get in there and cause infection. Signs of a swimmer's ear would be a child who complains their ear hurts; when you pull on the ear it really hurts, because again, it's the outer ear, it's not inside, it's on the outside, and when you look in the ear you see a red, really swollen ear canal, often even filled with pus.
How do I treat my child's swimmer's ear?
If your child is diagnosed with an outer ear infection, or swimmer's ear, they'll be put on ear drops. The ear drops will help decrease the infection and the inflammation of the outer ear which causes swimmer's ear. Sometimes the outer ear infection of swimmer's ear is so severe, so swollen and so full of puss, that you can't get the drops in. In those cases, sometimes they'll put what's called a wick in the ear. That allows the drop to get to the place where it needs to go, through all the inflammation and the swelling.
How can I help my child avoid getting swimmer's ear?
In general, the best thing to avoid a swimmer's ear is after swimming, to make sure you're drying your ears well with a towel. You really want to be careful with Qtips and you really don't want to stick Qtips past where you can't see them, because you can irritate the outer ear or even perforate the inner ear if you use a Qtip incorrectly. So we recommend being careful with Qtips but just really drying your ears. There are things you can put in the ear, ear drops after swimming that will help dry out the ear and help prevent water sitting there which can lead to infection.
When do I need to call the doctor about my child's earache?
Any time your child complains of earache, it is worthwhile to have it checked out. There are many different types of reasons why children complain of earache. In young children they may just be exploring and finding out about that body part. Earache may also be referred pain from teething, or they may have an actual outer or inner ear infection. The other reason children complain of earache is if they have a really stuffy nose, as they feel the pressure of that congestion in their ears, just like when we go on a plane and that can cause earache too. But in general, if your child complains of earache, the only way we can tell if it's an infection or not is by looking at it. So you should bring them in when they complain of earache, so we can look in their ears.
