Lauren is sick again

and I've got the crud too.
After a week of poor sleeping, with the last three nights being the worst by far (about 3 hours total for she and I each night) I finally broke down and took Lauren to the ped. Good news is shes up to 18 lbs. Bad news is she has a moderate ear infection in her left ear and a pretty bad one in her right. The right ear was infected a few weeks ago & he gave us 10 day of amoxicillian. I'm not sure if that just didn't knock it out or if it's a whole new one. I know nothing about ear infections but it seems as if I may be getting my schooling now.
Then my sleep-deprived, sick self cut a huge gash in my finger during craft time with K today. Poor Katherine freaked out because I was bleeding all over the place. GROSS and STUPID.
Anyway, both girls are going down for naps so I am going to try to get in a few minutes of shut eye before the madness starts again.

Oh, now he put her on augmentin for 10 days and also gave me numbing drops for her ears to ease the pain until the infection goes away. Anything I need to know about these? The pharmacist said to give her yogurt with the augmentin...I'm assuming it's becase it may cause diarreha? That's actually cool with me because she's also been constipated for over a week. LOL

I know some of you are pretty familiar with ear infections. So, any tips on how to avoid them? I will be doing some research but right now any quick tips that worked for you guys would be great...I'm too beat to look up anything useful right now. How to avoid them, ease the pain etc. I'm all ears (yowza, really bad pun)

Sorry about Lauren's ears and your finger. Noah was the ear infection king when he was Lauren's age. In my experience, amoxycillin, the first line of defense for ear infections, isn't always effective. Probably b/c of overuse, but now it seems you have to go to the stronger ones to get the job done. Kind of remember reading something about that recently.
We're sick here too. Alec's been running a high fever with an abyssmal sore throat since Sat. Two trips to the dr so far and counting. May be a bacterial tonsillitis, may be mono. Time will tell. Starting to feel a little crappy myself. Ugh.

Ugh. Welcome to my nightmare. It probably never went away the first time. Does your doc schedule re-checks 2 weeks after the initial appt? Even though Nora was cleared at her last one, the infection snuck back after a few days. I wasn't told to use yogurt, but that's probably because Nora wasn't really eating much in the way of table food at that point. I was always told to eat yogurt when I had antibiotics, but this was to stave off yeast infections. It helps introduce "good" bacteria back into the system that would otherwise be killed off with the "bad" bacteria.

I don't know whether I believe it or not, but I was told not to nurse lying down. I still do it, though...

Also, I never used numbing drops... they were never offered to me. Don't know anything about them.

Hope you both heal up quickly!

Yup, everytime I've taken Augmentin Ive gotten thrush (hence the yogurt.) Poor gals! I hope she is feeling better soon so you can get some sleep.

Big hugs for you and Lauren! I hope it clears up fast and stays away.

((HUGS))) I can completely sympathize with you right now.

Hope the sickness goes away quickly.

P.S. good thing I can type because I have no voice to say this to you. lol.

Oh no! We just went through that over here with Keegan. It was awful

I hope she is feeling better soon.

It's crud time! I hope Lauren kicks the ear infection quickly---so painful. Feel better soon, all of you!

Hey Cary-
I know this is gonna sound very "Woodstockian" of me- but have you ever considered a chiropractic adjustment/massage if Lauren is gonna be one of those chronic ear infection types. As I mentioned earlier, Noah averaged about 8-10 ear infections a year back in the day, and we were pretty desperate to try anything, as well as reduce the amount of antibiotics we were dumping into him. We eventually wound up in a chiropractor's office, which seemed odd to me, but I was willing to give it a shot. She did some sort of massaging kind of thing, where she claimed to be draining his lymph nodes of the offending fluids. It actually worked, or maybe he would have outgrown them anyway, but it made a believer out of me, not to mention the fact that it practically put normally hyper Noah into a blissful coma every time. I think we went once a week for awhile, and now that sort of thing is even covered by some insurances. Look into it.
The other thing this woman suggested was to adminster a probiotic every time you give an antibiotic. It's a powder that can be mixed in with cereals, and it's got acidopholus and lots of other good stuff that gets killed off with the antibiotics. Check with the dr, since Lauren is younger than N was at the time.
Good luck

We took Sophia to a DO for this... might be looking into it for Nora if this keeps up!

awww poor thing I hope it goes away fast.

AWWWW hun that does sound awful I hope Lauren starts to feel better soon poor baby, and you too

Don't be silly...Woodstockian...lol

I actually had read about this a few years ago in a parenting mag. since I'm such a fan of chiropractic medicine, I think I may have reccomeneded it to Amy. I'd forgotten about it though. You jarred my memory & I took her to my chiropracter on Thursday. I don't know if it was the adjustment or the drugs, but it was the first night that she slept through in over a week. Thanks