Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fungus Among Us

The Rite Aid managed to find the right anti-fungal medication for Nolan's ear. Just in case anyone else ends up in the same predicament and has the pharmacist try to hand them a certain feminine anti-yeast cream, here is a picture of what the medication should look like.

This is quite a big difference from the *ahem* first dispensing method they tried to offer us. I placed the first drops in his ears last night. So far, his ear is still quite infected. Hopefully things will improve over the next few days!

While solutions of vinegar and/or rubbing alcohol are commonly used for fungal outer ear infections, this is not advisable for any child with patent middle ear ventilation tubes. Since any medication dispensed into Nolan's ear canal will end up in the middle ear space, everything from the eustachian tube to the membrane-covered oval window is exposed to the solution. The only safe medication to treat the fungus at this point is a non-ototoxic medication, which has a fairly neutral pH to prevent irritation and pain. The reason the Ciprodex drops were so painful was the low pH in the medication, which burned when in contact with the raw skin in Nolan's ear canal. So far, he seems to be handling the anti-fungal drops fairly well.

In other news, we are preparing for preschool. The 3 year old class requires a potty-trained child, so we have jumped in with both feet and have candy, a potty (chosen by Nolan), and lots of training underwear. The score so far- puddles: 2, potty: 1.



Wish us luck: preschool starts on September 14!

9 comments:

Apraxia Mom said...

I think it is so wrong for schools to require children to be potty trained at age 3! Not all children are ready for that! They are the first to tell you that "Children do things on their own time frame, blah blah blah" and then they demand this!

Makes my blood boil!

Thank goodness they aren't requiring this of my 3 year old. He is anti-potty, although he will tell me when he needs to be changed. At this rate, my son would be admitted to school his senior year!

Love the "ahem" story!

Julia said...

Leah, were you able to access the actual handout from my blog? Was there a link that worked? I was in the middle of trying different ways to link to the document, and I thought that I had deleted the previous attempt (because I thought it hadn't worked), so I was frankly quite surprised to see your comment! I've put up a different link to the same document now, not the ideal way to do it but it seems to work for now. Anyway, assuming you did manage to view the document, I'm glad you liked it!

Good luck with potty training -- gooooo pots!

Joey Lynn Resciniti said...

The score is cute! Well I mean to read about.

I can't believe this ear infection's staying power!

Herding Grasshoppers said...

Hurray for getting the RIGHT meds ;D

And, oh I remember the potty training days well. And the "potty candy".

Good luck!

Julie

Ericka said...

Miles would be jealous of that potty!

The Wednesday Poet said...

I wonder if they could treat him with oral diflucan. I struggle with yeast on and off in my mouth (thrush). They used to treat it with nyastatin (oral liquid) and/or genetian violet. But diflucan knocks out yeast systemically. Anyway, it might be worth a suggestion to the dr if these drops don't work. Poor nolan. How uncomfortable.

PS Happy Birthday Nolan!

leah said...

I have no idea why they don't try something systemic. Supposedly, the tubes give the medication access to the infection, but it makes me wonder... We'll see. The infection is still there, but we have six more days of drops to go. Hopefully it will be gone, otherwise they'll do something more drastic.

rouchi6 said...

Am crossing all my toes, fingers and all and hoping the infection is soon out of his system.Thank God those potty training days are over for me. :)

xraevision said...

Good luck with the potty training. X seemed ready last summer, just before he turned two. He was notifying us with every poop, and was intrigued by the toilet, so we purchased a very nice potty. Opening the box and putting it together was exciting enough for him that he peed in it that day, but then he moved on. He does pee in the toilet a few times a week, but we haven't really started potty training officially.

When we registered him for preschool last June, my most pressing question was, "Does X need to be potty trained?" and thankfully, the answer was NO! This program is designed to focus specifically on language development and not overall child development. The teacher told us that they don't want to pile too many tasks onto the plates of these children, so maybe we'll wait until he has adjusted to school! One thing at a time, right?