Ruptured Ear Drum?

[Lori]

I am hoping to be able to get an answer regarding my daughter. She has had an ear infection which we noticed blood in her ear after 4 days on the antiobiotic. We called the HCIL line which is the healthcare information line for Tricare and and the nurse told us we needed to have her seen within 6 hours. Which I now don't understand why. We get to the ER and they can't see the whole eardrum to tell if it ruptured and basically told us it didn't matter if it did or not. He did give us a different prescription just in case the amoxicillin wasn't working. There he said there was no active bleeding but the next morning there was even more blood and once again we got the run around saying it didn't matter. She is going on her 3rd day of the new medicine and her ear is still draining.
I would just like to get a straight answer on whether or not this should be documented in her record because so far nobody has actuallly diagnosed her with that problem.
Thank you for your help in advance!!!

[Liz&NicksMom]

I wish I had an answer for you. I Hope Kim sees this for you and can help you...If you are concerened how about tryign to call your own Dr's office?

[KimmerRN]

Ugghh... I'm concerned of blood in her ears... Is there any other MD she can go to? In my training, blood in the ears is NOT a good thing & the MD's should be doing more for this. I've never heard of it being a sign that your antibiotic isn't working. :huh:

:hug: I hope things are better today.

[Lori]

I did call her pediatrician the morning after the ER visit and they said there was nothing they could do since she was already on antibiotics. Her ear has finally stopped draining but if her eardrum did rupture are there any side effects or something that I should be watching or looking for? Thank you for your help.

[Ouchywoo]

:hug: Sorry your daughter has such a nasty ear infection :hug:

Her ear drum will heal on it's own. Unfortunatly other than anti-biotics there isn't much you can do.
The "blood" you noticed was probably fluid rather than blood. Fluid often comes out a brownish red color which can be mistaken for blood.
After an ear drum rupters, it's often a relief for the patient as it lets out the pressure of fluid billed up from behind the ear drum.
If your DD has reacuuring ear infections ie; more than 6 a year, then she might need to have drainage tubes put in her ear.
You may like to take her to an Ear, Nose and Throat Sergeon in the future.

Hopefully she'll be feeling muh better in the next 2 days. :)