Ear Infection

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Ear Infection

10 Ideas to Ease the Symptoms

The baby rolls around in her crib in a restless, relentless bad dream. You check the clock. Midnight. You sigh and pull the covers up tighter and try to sleep.

She kicks the end of the crib. She rearranges her body with a snort and a sigh and a heavier-than-usual thud. She whimpers without waking.

You hear it all. You aren't asleep and, deep down, wonder if you will sleep at all tonight. Instead of counting sheep, you're counting little sensations of guilt. What could I have done to help her sleep better?

"Mommmmmy. Dadddddy." Her cries signal time for the midnight ear infection blues.

Children get middle ear infections for several reasons. Their eustachian tubes, the canals that lead from the back of the throat to the middle ear, are wider and shorter than those in adults. Or the nerves to the area may not be fully mature yet, which can also affect the eustachian tubes. Also, children in day care centers may be more exposed to colds, which can lead to ear infections.

And just because you're sleeping in a bed instead of a crib, don't think that you're immune. Take one adult with plugged sinuses and give him a ride in an airplane or let a cold and drippy nose hang on a couple of days too long and Pow! Instant ear infection.

The usual symptoms of a middle ear infection are pain and hearing loss, but adults and children can get ear infections without pain, says George W. Facer, M.D., an otolaryngologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Once infection hits, the best thing to cure it is antibiotics, although some clear up on their own. Your ears will be good as new in a week to ten days.

But what are you going to do tonight? And how can you prevent the next ear infection?

TENDER LOVING CARE

When you or your child is in pain, you want relief. Here's what the experts advise.

Try acetaminophen. This kind of pain reliever (Tylenol, Panadol, Tempra) is a doctor's first choice. A dose at bedtime may be enough to put the pain to sleep while you or your child dream. (No one under age 21 should be given aspirin because of the risk of Reye's syndrome, a life-threatening neurological disease.)

Keep your head up. When your head is upright, your eustachian tubes clear naturally, says Dudley J. Weider, M.D., an otolaryngologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire. This is one reason children with an ear infection don't seem to be in pain during the day. They're busy playing and running around and their eustachian tubes are draining into the backs of their throats.

Take a drink. Sipping water—swallowing—triggers the muscular action that helps your eustachian tubes open and drain, says Dr. Weider. Open tubes mean less pain.

MEDICAL ALERT Don't Wait for Pain If you have hearing loss or your ears stay plugged up for more than a couple of days after a cold, see your doctor. You could already have an ear infection or fluid in the middle ear, says George W. Facer, M.D. Left untreated, an ear infection can cause a permanent hearing loss in children and adults, he says. Ten to 14 days of antibiotics is the usual treatment.

Decongest at bedtime. Children and adults who seem to get a lot of ear infections may benefit from a dose of an over-the-counter oral decongestant right before they go to sleep. If there's fluid inside their ears waiting to haunt them, the medicine will dry it up and help them sleep.

Spray your nose, dry your ears. Adults may want to try a decongestant nose spray before bed in addition to an oral decongestant or antihistamine, says Dr. Facer. But use nose drops for only a day or two. Overuse can create a rebound effect, making a clogged nose worse.

PREVENTIVE CARE

While you can't really prevent ear infections, there are some things you can do that might help lessen the chances of getting them.

Breastfeed your baby. Some experts believe this will lessen your baby's chances of ear problems.

A study of 237 infants in Helsinki, Finland, showed that 6 percent of breastfed babies and 19 percent of formula-fed babies had developed middle ear infections by the end of the first year. By age 3, only 6 percent of those breastfed developed an infection compared with 26 percent of those fed formula.

Why the big difference? Researchers believe that breast-fed infants have an enhanced immune response to respiratory infections.

Quit smoking. Smoking can push an adult with ear problems toward an infection by littering the air with irritants, which in turn leads to eustachian tube congestion, says Dr. Weider. Second-hand smoke, which is also pollutant-filled, can be just as hard on children prone to ear problems.

Douse the fire in your wood-burning stove. For the same clean-air reasons you should quit smoking, you'll want to put out the fire in your woodstove. Soot and smoke from the fire in your stove load the air with hard-to-breathe and hard-to-tolerate toxins.

Choose child care carefully. Children exposed to large groups of other children are more likely to come into contact with the bugs that cause ear infections. Parents who need day care for a child prone to ear infections may want to consider a small group setting, such as a family day-care home, until the child outgrows ear infections, says Dr. Weider.

Be patient. Some children outgrow ear infections by age 3, says Dr. Facer. Then you both can sleep.

George W. Facer, M.D. is an otolaryngologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Dudley J. Weider, M.D., is an otolaryngologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, New Hampshire.