Croup and Double Ear Infection

Well, Tae has her first ear infection. Unfortunately, it is bilateral and accompanied by croup. It started on Sunday, and got bad enough today that we took her into see the pediatrician.

EDITED ON JANUARY 26, 2009:

Apparently many people are finding our blog by searching croup + double ear infection. My previous post gave no valuable information. This post is to remedy that problem. Here is a site that has some good info. Below is our experience and information from our pediatrician.

Because I am paranoid, I called the pediatrician and talked to the nurse. I was supposed to call and get my 8 month-old in to see the pediatrician if:
Fever lasting more than 3 days.
Labored Breathing.
Coughing induced vomiting.

We didn't have any of those, and I did not realize that Tae had croup. She wasn't having problems breathing. She was not wheezy, nor did she sound like 'a dog'. Here is what we did have:
Tugging on ears--our child has always tugged on her ears. I had had them checked for an ear infection before, but she never had one. She was tugging on her ears more than normal.
Elevated temperature that lasted for 3 days--she never went above 101, but it lasted for a prolonged period.
Cough--the pediatrician said to bring her in if she had coughing induced vomiting. We never hit this point, but she was coughing up a mouthful of gunk occasionally when she coughed.
A muted cry--if you didn't look at her, you wouldn't know that she was crying. No volume came out while she was crying.

When we met with our pediatrician, she first noticed the bilateral ear infection. It was severe in one ear and moderate in the other. Because it was Tae's first ear infection, they prescribed amoxicillin.

That was all the pediatrician was going to do, but then Taelyn started to cry. The doctor asked if she always sounded like that when she cried. She also asked if she had any problems breathing. Even though she hadn't had problems breathing, we were told she had croup. We were given a very small pill, an oral steroid, and told to take it home, crush it up, and feed it to her in something sweet. Apparently it has a very bitter taste. We put it in OJ. The oral steroid was to help open up her air passage. We were also told to take her outside if she had any coughing fits; the cold would also help her airway to open. We never did have to do that, but I no longer stressed over covering her head when we took her out (she was bundled). It seemed to help.

Additionally, we got some infant vapor rub that we put on her chest and sholders at night, and added some vapor stuff to the humidifier. After the steroid and 10+ days of ammoxicillin, she was doing much better. It has now been 2 1/2 weeks. She is doing great. Hope this helps, if even just a little.