Olive Oil For Earwax

[mandimoo]

My 3 year old has terrible earache. Saw gp this morning and he prescribed olive oil drops & alternating ibuprofen with paracetamol, giving a dose every 3 hours. He says one ear (the painful one) is completely full of wax and he can't see the drum. The other drum has a slight bulge, but doesn't seem to be bothering her. Poor mite can't last between doses of pain relief and is wailing (intermittently) in pain. On the eardrops it says 2 drops, once a day. Is there any harm in me trying to speed up the clearing out of wax and giving her 2 doses of ear drops today.

[Sqad]

\\\\But I can't help wondering if the child has an abscess under all that wax. I have had many, and the pain is excruciating. If mine were not treated with penicillin, the abcesses would burst with even more pain.\\

Atalanta....I think that your diagnosis is "spot on"...abscess or infection.

[furrypusscat]

Just a useful point if not known, if you insert cotton wool after the oil, make sure you also put oil on the cotton wool otherwise what is in the ear will just be soaked up by the dry cotton wool making the oil ineffective. Not everyone thinks of this.
Re infection/abscess, I visited GP who thought my problem was wax and prescribed ear drops. Unfortunately there was an abscess which he had failed to notice and due to bank holiday weekend I ended up at A&E as the drops I had been prescribed shouldn't have been actually making the problem far worse, hence I was then treated with antibiotics.