Son 5 has a terribly painful ear-ache?

Take him to the emergency room or call the on-call nurse line.

I agree with @YARNLADY. He needs immediate attention. If it’s that bad there is nothing at home that will help him get through the night.

Give him Tylenol and get him to see someone. Earache can be incredibly painful. He’s not going to go to sleep while it’s hurting like that.

go to the doctor

I used to suffer from multiple ear infections as a child.

Step 1. Take temperature
Step 2. Get some water to drink

Unfortunately only doctors can prescribe the anti biotic that will go in the ear. It’s a tough call because tomorrow is so soon, but if his temperatures are ok I would wait it out until tomorrow.

Honestly, if it was my child, he would have been in the ER hours ago (....way before it would occur to me to ask fluther….) .what’s the worst that could happen by being overly cautious? He gets the medicine he actually needs…?.

I had a ton of painful ear infections as a child. Some things that might help in the short term: put a warm (NOT HOT) washcloth on his pillow, and have him lay the ‘bad’ ear on it. Give him children’s Tylenol for pain/fever. If those don’t enable him to sleep, take him to the ER.

@cheebdragon Excellent use of the pedestal. You don’t have to scold another Jelly, they asked the question, its over, they don’t need lecturing as to why you’re so great and their actions aren’t. I’m sorry I’m just all furious because it’s super late right now. I can appreciate your advice, but come on, the pedestal tactic?

Anyways @Bretbocook We wish your son a speedy recovery. Just know that it’s fairly common, I’ve had about 5 of them. Monitor the situation and follow @augustlan advice, sleeping on the ear ache helps.

Do give us an update! :D

Actually I was thinking the exact same thing as cheap dragon .

How old is your child? ((Oops… I see. he is 5 years old.)

I have been so lucky with my kid and I don’t panic and go to the doc over every cough and cold, but ears are a different story. Earaches with temperatures is never anything I would delay treatment for or even give it some time to see if it gets worse or better, like I would a cough.

Is it the middle of the night where you are? Is that why you can’t get out? I don’t drive, so if my son woke up at 2am, I would have to wait until the busses started running to get him to the doctor… that I would have to deal with, unless he started seizing or his temperature got so bad, then I would call a taxi or an ambulance. (we live waaaay out in the country) We also have universal health care where I live, so I don’t have to worry about paying for an Ambulance for a sick child, or the cost of an ER visit. I have no right to sit on any pedestal and lecture uninsured American moms. I could never walk a mile in their shoes.

I don’t know what your ER’s are like or if you can get into a family clinic ASAP, but get it seen to right away in the morning. Put a warm, damp cloth on his ear and give him some pain reliever in the meantime.

@cheebdragon We can’t assume everyone has the funds/insurance to go to the ER, which is why someone might seek home remedies first.

Tylenol with sleep aid (or kids Nyquil or something). Get the room as cold as you can and stay with him all night. Put a washcloth dampened with frigid water over his head/ear. If it reduces the pain a little to gently pull his ear away from his head, do that. Play slow classical music (“Clair de Lune” on repeat should do the job). Good luck.

ER or a walk in clinic and tylenol. Or, call your doc back and say the child must be seen today and see if he will change the appointment. Make sure you get ear drops from the doc to reduce the inflammation. Plus, they will probably give you oral antibiotics too. The ear drops have cortizone properties that help with the pain a lot, because the antibiotic takes a couple days.

:(

@sliceswiththings In California, the ER is required to treat every patient, without regard to their ability to pay. They will be billed after the fact, but the finance counselor will work with them on charity or other possibilities.

omg. a finance counsellor to pay for medical treatment. That sounds absolutely miserable.

@cazzie I believe the actual term is Financial Aid Assistant, and yes, for people with no insurance or income, it can be very miserable.

It was not a lecture, nor was I scolding them. I truly don’t give a flying fuck what happens to them or their child. I simply stated what I would do if my child had the symptoms they listed. If that offended anyone, i really dont care. Call me crazy or paranoid, but I like to seek advice from medically trained professionals, rather than random strangers on the internet.

Wow.

@Bretbocook I hope you will let us know how it turned out with your child, what was wrong with him and how he is doing now.

I’m with @wilma. I’ve gone through many painful ear infections with my daughter and I know how hard it can be. I hope your son is feeling better now @Bretbocook.

@YARNLADY And that is why California is awesome! They took good care of me when I was over there and afflicted with various ailments and my Massachusetts health insurance did nothing.

California is just about this awesome…...

“When medical bills go unpaid, many health care providers shift the costs onto those who can pay—those with health insurance. This cost-shifting amounts to a hidden tax levied by providers on behalf of those who cannot pay, the uninsured and underinsured. In our poorly designed health care system, providers have little choice but to shift costs. This results in an approximate 10 percent increase in health insurance premiums for Californians. More specifically, the average California family with health insurance will pay anadditional $1,186 in premiums for 2006. Individuals purchasing insurance will spend about $455 annually in additional premiums.”
A Premium Price: The Hidden Costs All Californians Pay In Our Fragmented Health Care System

@cheebdragon Pretty sure that is all states. How do you think the bills are covered when people don’t pay? The people who can do pay, pay more. Same with people stealing merchandise out of a store, those who actually buy their goods, cover the losses the store suffers from the thiefs. Everything is passed onto the consumer. This is why the Republicans bitching about paying for other peoples healthcare if we had socialized medicine is bullshit, we already do pay for other peoples healthcare when we are paying our bills directly to the hospital.

@JLeslie yeah…..we already do pay for other people’s healthcare (+ all sorts of other shit)...and clearly that is really working wonders for us, isn’t it? Laws tend to vary from state to state, but we were talking about California…hence my comment.
Hey! I have a great idea! You can start paying for my health insurance (around $10,000 each year), and as a bonus, you can even pay the $35 for birth control each month ($420 a year)....(the same exact kind of BC that you can get for free at planned parenthood if you don’t have health insurance).

Sounds fair, right? And to think, those republicans just bitch, and bitch about that bullshit…..~

We have Universal Healthcare and it doesn’t cost HALF of what American’s pay and they get half as much care as we do. The problem is far deeper than ‘who pays.’

@cheebdragon My point is what the Republicans are fighting for regarding healthcare still mean we pay for other people care. You may have missed that I wrote a Q saying I disagreed with Obama on requiring the Catholic church to pay for contraception, but I have to say a lot of people had good arguments for why Obama’s mandate made sense.

There is almost no competition in the health system, and so it simply does not function as a free market. Some will argue that is because of government interference, but also it is because of monopolies and collusion. I have so many examples of ridiculous fees, fees badly supposedly negotiated by insurace companies. Examples like my Insurance is billed $400 for a medicine, or I can pay out of pocket $50. Similar examples for blood tests, CAT scans, and more.

I know a doctor who complains about how little medicare pays for services. Probably he is right that in some cases they underpay what would be reasonable, but he literally gets paid $1,000 for a certain procedure by medicare, and charges $7,000 to people who are not coved by insurance. Maybe somewhere in the middle is reasonable? This guy makes a shitload of money, and when he complains about his income going down the last 10 years, I don’t give a damn. He has a huge house, 8+ cars, I am not sure exactly how many. Some are classics and some are for racing, and then he and his wife have daily drivers. They have 5 kids combined, 3 of which are in or have completed college which they fund(ed). They travel, they own a house (with a ten car garage) and a lakehouse an hour and a half away with a very nice boat. I don’t fault him for working hard, and he does, and he is supposedly an extremely skilled surgeon, nor for making a good income, but pleaae how can he complain? From where I sit he probably was making too much money before, and maybe he is making a more reasonable income now. Maybe if doctors really worked with patients, charged just fees, if we were not letting a profit seeking third party, insurance control medical care, if there was more integrity in the system, it would work better.

And, how about some of our best medical institutions in America the doctors are salaried. Mayo, Johns Hopkins, and more. The doctor is focusedon the care, not doing a procedure to get more money in his pocket.

I would NEVER go to a doctor (or more to the point, a hospital) who was more worried about how much money to earn than treating me. The US system seems to favor the money chasers. Seriously, most Americans have no idea how ridiculous a hospital run for money and corporate profit sounds to the rest of the world.

@JLeslie We don’t pay for the uninsured because of republicans, no, republicans would let the uninsured die.

@cheebdragon I do not blame just the republicans. People do not get tatment all the time because they can’t afford it. The laws cover emergency situations to keep you from dying at the moment of crisis. They do not cover cancer treatment to get rid of the tumor, or medication to control a chronic condition. There are some programs in place, but they really are not adequate a lot of the time. There are questions all over fluther about someone having a medical problem and not having the money to take care of it. Some cases they could just go to the ER, but they still are billed. They will be delinquent if they don’t pay. Seems like a pretty stupid system.

@JLeslie In my experience, people who can’t find help are afraid to ask for it. I have unemployed adults living in my home who go to the free clinic for prescription meds, and to the E.R. for serious injuries. They work with the financial aid counselor to receive the treatment they need at the price they can afford, or free through the hospital charity.

@YARNLADY I have several chronic conditions, and was unable to get health insurance for years because of it. I made just slightly too much to get any help at all, but paid almost $500.00 a month for the medication I need until just recently (it’s only about $350.00/month now). Thanks to Obama’s PCIP, I can now get health insurance for slightly less than I pay for my prescriptions each month. Hope to be insured by March!

@Augustlan I couldn’t find it on the site,do you know who is paying the cost portion you now save under obama’s PCIP?

@augustlan I have read of several people who have an income that prevents them from receiving medical care. It surprises me, because one of my grandsons is employed part time, and when he was in a car wreck, the emergency room treated him and then negotiated a payment plan where charity paid most of the bill, and he only paid a token fee.

@cheebdragon I assume we all (the taxpayers, and I am one) are. Just as we all were before, when someone was hospitalized and couldn’t pay. We all pay for everyone’s healthcare, one way or another. The difference is, now I (and others) can take better care of myself and not let things go until they become drastically worse.

Edit: There are also deductibles that have to be met under PCIP.

@YARNLADY I was employed either not at all (but my husband was employed full time), or full-time during this time period. We also own our own house, and have 5 kids between us. We likely made considerably more than your grandson, but also have considerably higher expenses. It makes a difference.

@augustlan is right. When you pay taxes, you help pay for everyone’s healthcare. When you pay insurance, you pay for Corporate Bonuses, Shiny high-rise buildings, and an entire industry as well as… help pay for everyone’s healthcare who also pays into that insurance brand.

@cheebdragon Something to think about. There are plenty of people in America who get insurance when they get symptoms, before they get diagnosed with the bad thing. They haven’t paid anything to that insurance company, and then they start with company to get treated and cost the company, which is really costing the members, thousands of dollars for their treatment. If we required everyone to pay through taxes everyone would be paying in for their care.

Also, I paid thousands and thousands to several health insurance companies when I was younger, now I have new coverage because my husband switched jobs a few years ago. All that money I paid in to the other companies is basically lost. In fact, if my husband and I had hit hard times and had no insurance I would, and do, find it awful that all the money I have paid in towards my health would be meaningless. I realize, generally, this is how insurance works, home, health, car, you have to be up to date with paying for it for coverage, but with health it really bothers me, more than other industries.

@JLeslie Future lost, yes, but peace of mind or past comfort, priceless

The money that goes into most health care plans is used by those who become sick. The rest pay for the possibility that they will be in that category.

@YARNLADY I agree. I was pointing to those who do get sick, but paid the bulk of their money into a different insurance plan than the one they become sick under.

@JLeslie and I was talking about the people who don’t pay at all.

I can see why you would feel like you were losing out on money by changing insurance providers. Most people who have insurance don’t even go to the doctor that often. I just go for the fuck of it sometimes, I might as well since I pay for it. I change doctors on a regular basis. I get bloodwork done every other month for as many things as I can, and I probably know all the lab techs within 5 miles, honestly. I don’t feel like I’m wasting my money by paying for health insurance, but I do feel like I shouldn’t have to pay for shit that others are getting for free.

@cheebdragon I don’t really feel like I am personally wasting money, I feel like one company made a shitload of money, while the other will carry the burden of paying for my illness if I get sick quickly after starting up with them. I actually think you abuse the system in a horrible way getting needless tests, we all pay for that, and it increases all of our health bills. No one would get anything for free if it were a tax. Well, the poor would still get free healthcare, but they do anyway.

Someone I know makes over $200k a year and just became very symptomatic so was rushing to get new health insurance. Long story short he has cancer and will be starting radiation in a week, then surgery and chemo, not sure what order. He basically has not paid in at all, and now we will all pay for his care, and he is far from poor. He has not broken any rules or laws, this is how our system works. I wish he had been forced to pay all along, in his country he would have been.

A girlfriend of mine today said someone in her zumba class waited a few months until her medicare kicked in to address symptoms she was having because she had no insurance and winds up she has uterine cancer. People wait or don’t go to the doctor all the time because they are not insured. It is a fantasy to think everyone is cared for if they just show up at the ER.

@JLeslie So I should pay $10,000 a year but only go to the doctor if I feel like I’m dying? Should people stop taking HIV tests just because they might comeback negative?
You have a problem with one company getting a lot of money, but you’re willing to let the government control your health? Makes sense, I mean look at how well the DMV is doing, Fannie Mae, freddie Mac, SSA, department of education….let’s let them handle health care also, everyone loves a good long wait in line.
Seems like you know a lot of people in every situation. It’s interesting.

@cheebdragon I have no problem with you getting periodic tests to monitor your health. You said you go for the fuck of it. You get bloodowrk every other month for bunches of things, that probably once a year or once every 6 months would be plenty. I get bloodwork every 2–3 months because I need to, but when I did not need to I didn’t. Why is your doctor ok doing that? He doesn’t mind abusing the system also? Or, maybe you are going directly to a lab for the tests, and he does not get a little kick back when youjust have bloodwork, I don’t know the details of course, I hate to assume.

When I was growing up I was under miitary health care, and I miss it. Sure screw ups happen there to, but overall I was very happy with my care and especially the process. My paremts still use Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed as their primary places of care (Walter Reed might have closed already) and they are overall happy also, even though the doctors there have made mistakes like all doctors can. Doctors I know who worked for the Navy and later went to the private sector talk about being able to give better care to their patients. Hospitals like Mayo and Johns Hopkins, our best clinical centers, have salaried doctors, they are not paid depending on what service or procedure they perform.

So, yes, even though the government would make mistakes I would rather have them. I would rather have a government whose intent is to provide healthcare even though there will be some money thrown on the street, lost in the system, and bad decisions made regarding care, than a corporation who is in business to be in business, to make money, and also makes bad decisions sometimes regarding my health, and wastes money, and stuffs a bunch of money in the pockets of investors and executives. The initial intention matters to me. As soon as healthcare companies can’t make a profit they will close their business, because their primary goal is profit, not your health.

People who live in countries with socialized medicine overwhelming say they would not want to go to our type of system, even though they have some complaints about their own. They feel cared for by their government, they have more trust in their government. Sure there are complaints in every health system, but I have complaints in America too. I won’t give the list of bullshit that has happened to me. The rip-offs I have paid because my insurance company made a deal that made my cost for a CT scan higher than if I paid out of pocket, or the medication I paid $45 for when my insurance would have been billed $450. Seriously, it is criminal.

@cheebdragon Also, I didn’t wait in line at the DMV in Palm Beach County Florida, I just made an appointment and they took me on time. When I needed a permit to alter my driveway I turned in my paperwork, and they called me three days later, telling me everything was ready to pick up. When I called Social Security for my FIL they answered our questions and made an appointment for him at his local SS office. When Palm Beach County failed to cancel my voters registration when I moved, I called up and spoke to someone and they sent me a letter confirming I was taken of the voters roles.

In TN I did wait on a long line to get my drivers license, they weren’t as organized or efficient. I don’t know if that has to do with lower taxes being paid here, or just simply the system is not run as well. In the town next to me I joined a gym, I pay more for my membership because I live outside of the town, and don’t pay into their tax base. One day I heard women talking, saying everything bad about all government while they stood in the municipally built gym after their water aerobics class.

The south notoriously has poor public school for many different reasons, and they also hate paying for the public schools. Sure there are crappy school systems up north too, but the school systems where the government and citizenry really care about the public system is not horrible everywhere, some districts are very good, including in the south; Dallas, TX, even where I live in Germantown, TN the schools are supposed to be pretty good, but they pay a much higher tax base for their schools than the surrounding towns in the same county. It can be done.

I am all for a combination of government and private business to provide services for us. It is not black and white, there is room for both. America has been a hybrid of government and private business for most of the country’s existance, we just need to tweak the balance over time, and we always will have to.

The fact that the US denies people medical care when even less affluent countries manage to provide care for all their citizens is truly a mystery. I lived in New Zealand for 15 years and never had to wait for a thing and they managed an early health care program for babies and their mothers that was groundbreaking. Did you know that the US maternal death rates are behind 40 other countries in the world? Don’t tell me the US has the best healthcare in the world. They don’t. It is a fact.

@cazzie lol there is only 4,328,578 people in New Zealand far cry from 354,754,277 read this http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05scene.html

@fredTOG I agree that medical care is more complicated in a country as large as the US. I also agree with your article that we spend way too much on having patients and families feel we have done everything possible and unnecessary tests to protect a doctor from possile lawsuit. And, the thing I hate the most about our system is how healthcare is linked to employment; if we never get government run healthcare I can live with it, but I plead with both the dems and republicans to please remove the link between employment and health insurance.

Now, about medical discoveries and innovation, statisticly America has more chances of discovering or inventing. $300million more chances of having the brilliant scientist along with our country’s focus on the sciences. Engineering discoveries? Likely to be Germany, Israel and America. Cancer research? A lot is done in America. Heart disease? England is known for it. Stomach Cancer? Japan. In fact, when my mom worked at National Cancer Institute, she knew doctors from several countries, because America brings them in to research here. Hey, I throw around stats like that too. About ten years ago the stat was 20% of Nobel prizes (that is all Nobel prizes all fields, I didn’t want it to sound like I mean only medical science prizes) go to Jews, but Jews are less than one quarter of one percent of the world population. Are Jews really better? Or, are they statistically more likely culturally to be at the top of their fields because over 80% live in America and Israel? One country mini small and the other one super huge. And, there is incredible emphasis among Jewish people on education, science, and the arts.

I have a friend who was proud to say his mom, even though she didn’t have much money, always gave several hundred dollars a year to St. Jude research hospital. Yet, she would not give her son one penny towards his college education. I can’t imagine a Jewish person doing that. Cultural difference. He didn’t finish college. If he was going to be the next mechanical engineer who discovered something great (he is a mechanic) he did not have the support from the state or his family to see it through.

It would be interesting to me to know exactly how the dollar amount is calculated per person for healthcare costs. I didn’t realize they were counting research in the number, I would like to see the number without that figured in. I would think we are still very high, because of the extreme profit sought in our system, plus the other things mentioned in my first paragraph.

@fredTOG I never said that it would have to be administered on a national level, but you would think, that for economies of scale, the US should be able to negotiate excellent health care on Regional Levels. Even in NZ, the health districts were divided up to better manage assets, personell etc. To use that as an excuse for NOT revamping the healthcare system in the US is just the insurance corporations talking.

@cazzie I wish a few of our states would trully go socialized medicine and give it a true test run. One thing that complicates the issue is some states are so much poorer than others.

I would also like to add a reply to the article that @fredTOG references. Of course the innovation is great but to infer that it would suffer if medical care was more available to people is completely unfounded. The author writes ‘This innovation-rich environment stems from the money spent on American health care.’ Fine. Money finds the money makers is all that is saying. The article is almost like Alice at her Tea Party. The Mad Hatter asks Alice, ‘Would you like more healthcare? It is now extraordinarily good healthcare.’ and Alice replies, ‘How can I have MORE healthcare when I have never had any healthcare.’ It really is Through the Looking Glass stuff. Sure, it’s like Dad having the latest car, newest golf clubs, a country club membership and all the gadgets in the garage while the family is at home, sitting on plastic furniture with nothing to eat. It is an INDUSTRY where the rich get richer and the poor kids die because they didn’t have the fortune to be born to parents with large stock portfolios.