Earache can have different causes. Most often, we are talking about the ingress of a foreign body into the ear or an inflammatory process - external or otitis media.
Ear pain is easy to recognize even in a small child who cannot yet speak. The kid not only cries and refuses to eat, but also constantly rubs and tugs at his ears. If only one ear hurts, the child tries to lie on this side.
The first thing to do is to examine the ear canal by slightly pulling the auricle and shining a flashlight inward. Perhaps it turns out that an insect has flown into the ear, or the child has thrust some small object into it, for example, a part of a toy.
If there is no doubt that we are talking about an insect, you need to drip olive or Vaseline oil into your ear to make it float, but there is no guarantee that this will help. It is better not to try to remove other foreign bodies on your own at all - it is easy to damage the baby's eardrum with inept actions. An urgent need to go to the emergency room or the emergency room of the ENT department of the nearest hospital.
Otitis media - an inflammation of the outer or middle ear - is often caused by colds. In this case, the pain is accompanied by redness of the auricle, purulent discharge from the ear, but these signs may not be present. For clarification, you can slightly press on the tragus - the front of the auricle, with otitis media, this increases the pain, and the child will respond appropriately to pressing.
It should be borne in mind that pain in the ear can be worse while lying down and weakened by sitting or standing.
Self-medication for otitis media is unacceptable. The child must be shown to an otolaryngologist, and this must be done immediately. The doctor must admit a patient with acute pain without an appointment and even out of turn. First aid for middle ear inflammation is to relieve pain.
A popular folk remedy in this case is a warming alcohol compress on the ear. This cannot be done: if the inflammation is accompanied by a purulent process, the compress will strengthen it. For the same reason, the blue lamp and other warming procedures should not be used. They are all the more contraindicated if the pain in the ear is accompanied by an increase in temperature. Whether there is suppuration, only a doctor can establish.
We can recommend only one relatively safe warming procedure for relieving pain: moisten a cotton swab with warm, but not hot water, insert it into the ear canal without immersing it deeply, and hold it for a while, repeat this procedure 2-3 times in a row.
The safest way to help a child is to give pain medication, such as Nurofen or Ibuprom. Aspirin is not recommended.
You cannot drip any medicine into your ears without a doctor's prescription. For example, the popular drug "Otipax" is contraindicated in case of damage to the tympanic membrane, which often accompanies otitis media.
If the child has had otitis media before, you can drop the drops prescribed by the doctor into the ear. This must be done correctly. Before using the drops, you need to hold them in your hand for a while or immerse them in warm water so that they warm up to body temperature. The child is laid on its side, gently pulling the auricle to the side and slightly upward. The number of drops varies from 3 to 10, depending on the age of the patient and the size of the ear: the medicine should fill the ear canal up to half.
Having instilled the medicine, you need to close the ear with a cotton swab and ask the child to lie down in this position for 15 minutes. If the child is too small to be able to explain something to him, he will have to sit next to him or hold him in his arms, not allowing him to roll over.
