Ear infections, also known as middle ear infections or acute otitis media, are extremely painful for children to experience. While adults can get ear infections occasionally, they more commonly affect children. Ear infections can affect any part of the outer, middle, or inner ear, but they most often affect the middle ear, which contains multiple tiny bones.
In general, ear infections can be either bacterial or viral in nature, and they typically clear up on their own within several weeks. However, severe ear infections can drag on for months potentially resulting in permanent ear damage. Therefore, if your child has an ear infection that doesn’t go away in a week or two, you should see a medical professional.
There are many different symptoms that your child may exhibit if they have an ear infection. The severity of the symptoms will vary depending on how bad the infection is and what type of infection they have. Ear infection symptoms may also appear and go away without warning. Because children are experiencing pain in their ears but have no idea what’s going on, ear infections are frightening experiences for them. Here are some of the symptoms they might complain of.
Once again, these symptoms vary from child to child and will come and go intermittently.
While children display many symptoms with ear infections, there’s typically only one possible cause. Most ear infections happen due to a viral or bacterial infection of the Eustachian tube. Here’s what happens.
While anyone can get an ear infection, a few things increase your chances.
Ear infections are most common in children because their Eustachian tubes are more prone to infection.
Having seasonal allergies puts your children at higher risk.
For reasons unknown, children of Alaska Native heritage, Hispanic, or Native American descent are more prone to ear infections.
The more prone your child is to get the common cold, the more likely they will have an ear infection.
Most doctors will have little difficulty diagnosing an ear infection based on the child’s physical symptoms and a simple ear exam. During the exam, your doctor will use an otoscope to look inside the potentially infected ear. An ear infection is almost certain if they notice discoloration, a build-up of fluid, or immobility of the eardrum. Because of how common ear infections are, diagnosis is fairly quick and accurate.
As with the common cold, most ear infections will clear up on their own within several days or a week. As a result, your doctor may recommend holding off on treatment to see if the infection will resolve on its own. If it doesn’t, your doctor will recommend antibiotics to kill the infection and pain medication to ease the painful symptoms of the condition.
In serious situations where antibiotics aren’t fixing the ear infection, your child may require surgery. Typically, surgery involves placing ear tubes into the middle ear to forcibly drain the fluids building up inside. Using one of these methods, your child should recover from their ear infection in no time.