Contrary to common practice, most children with ear infections should not be treated with antibiotics, according to powerful, 21st Century evidence-based guidelines released by the American Academy Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family...
Most parents are taught to think that if an antibiotic is given to their child for an ear infection, the medicine will help the child to recover. Not necessarily! Of the 10 million annual antibiotic prescriptions for ear infections, somewhere...
Contrary to common practice, most children with ear infections should not be treated with antibiotics, according to powerful, evidence-based guidelines released in March 2004 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family...
I've long said that doctors should be giving more pain medicines than antibiotics to children with ear infections - because every child with an ear that is inflamed enough to need antibiotics clearly deserves pain relief. In addition, many children...
Women who wouldn't consider smoking while pregnant might not think twice about putting flea collars on their pets or spraying to control cockroaches. Thankfully, somebody did. While revelers were celebrating at midnight on New Year's Eve 2000, a new...
Asthma is becoming more and more common at all ages, now affecting more than 20 million Americans (including more than 5 million children). What do we know about managing asthma in pregnancy? Inhaled steroids are one of the standard treatments for...
A controversial 1998 study published in The Lancet implied that the MMR vaccine might be a cause of autism. This sparked deep suspicion of the vaccine and prompted a great deal of new research involving hundreds of thousands of children (that has...
It's not unusual for women to become depressed at some point during the first year after having a baby. Often this depression sets in sometime after the routine 4- to 6-week visit with the obstetrician. The pediatrician may be the only doctor a...
Investigators have compared matched children with acute, red hot ear infections who were treated initially with observation (including earache relief) and those who were treated initially with antibiotics. How did the two groups fare? I’d rather be...
With garden-variety ear infections (what doctors call otitis media with effusion, or OME), germ-filled fluid is present in the middle ear. Most ear infections in children are OME. We’ve known for about a decade that antibiotics are not necessary...
The consensus, evidence-based 2004 guidelines recommend that children under 6 months of age with red hot ear infections should be treated with antibiotics for 10 days and pain relief for at least the first 24 hours, whether or not the diagnosis is...
Fluid must be present in the ear, behind the eardrum, for there to be an ear infection (what doctors call otitis media). The tiny eardrum is a sensitive structure, and can hurt for many reasons: including stretching, trauma, irritants, changes in...
Most of the treatments for poison ivy, oak and sumac are aimed at reducing the itching, until the self-limited rash runs its course, which takes about two weeks. Click here for Dr. Greene’s tips on treating these allergic reactions.
