Mastoiditis – ear infections in children

So last saturday my daughter woke with her right ear sticking out, as she has rather petite flat ears this was a little odd. She has just has 4 teeth come through at the same time and had spent a week with her temperature going up a little (so we thought) and a bit of whimpering in her sleep during the night. We thought maybe she had slept on it in a bad way or knocked it in her cot. However I though it didn’t look right and she needed to see the doctor.

As an interlude a point on thermometers for children…do not get those ones that are a strip you hold against the forehead, as one doctor said to us they are about as useful as one of those magic fish (that chaneg colour on your hand) that you get from a cracker)

So we took her to the emergency doctor and we were blessed because this doctor said although it was unusually rare, he thought our daughter had mastoiditis he had seen it once before and recognised the symptoms. He didn’t want to panic us but it was a medical emergency! We zipped off to the local hospital, got a diagnosis and were then admitted to the childrens hospital. Where our daughter was given intravenous antibiotics.

So what is mastoiditis:

Mastoiditis is usually a consequence of a middle ear infection (acute otitis media). The infection may spread from the ear to the mastoid bone of the skull. The mastoid bone fills with infected materials and its honeycomb-like structure may deteriorate. Mastoiditis most commonly affects children. Before antibiotics, mastoiditis was one of the leading causes of death in children. Now it is a relatively uncommon and much less dangerous disorder. Except ti seems there is an arument in the medical profession related to research that suggested a amjority of middle ear infections in children did better when not treated with antibiotics. A skull X-ray or head CT scan or CT of the ear may show an abnormality in the mastoid bone. A culture of drainage from the ear may show bacteria.

The usual symptoms are:

Ear pain or discomfort
Swelling behind ear, may cause ear to stick out
Redness of the ear or behind the ear
Fever, may be high or suddenly increase
Headache
Drainage from the ear

I think we were blessed in that we noticed and acted early, many would not and that is where the danger lies in further infection to the bone, eye or brain in serious cases. After a couple of days we were allowed to go home with oral antibiotics to give her and this seems to have done the trick. A nasty scare.

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