Antibiotics and Ears

I'm a firm believer in no antibiotics unless a culture comes back with definite bacterial infection. Our pediatrician is too which is nice to have a pediatrician who I can trust. Wylie has had two confirmed bacterial ear infections in his life. The kind that need antibiotics. How did we find out? After he spiked a fever, puked and then had a febrile seizure with the first and became lethargic with the second. He never complained of ear pain or any type of pain at all. Wylie was administered antibiotics in the ER with the seizure as the attending pediatrician identified a massive double ear infection. We went to see our pediatrician the next day and he confirmed the diagnosis but also did a nose culture to confirm the need for antibiotics. After three rounds of antibiotics that did nothing but give him side effects and not clear up the infection we stopped giving him cow's milk (per our pediatrician's recommendation). The ears cleared up in days! DAYS! The second confirmed ear infection was again a let's do a culture and administer antibiotics only when the culture comes back positive. DONE. We did a round of antibiotics and the ear cleared up. We had given him a small saucer of cow's milk two days prior to the onset of the ear infection. So why do I care about telling all of you this... Because after 6 years of wait and see the APA may be reversing the trend of NOT giving antibiotics to kids with ear infections. Here is the CNN article on it. Two studies show a whopping 6% difference in length of infection and clearing of infection for children given a placebo and those given antibiotics. AND the one thing many parents are begging for with ear infections is something to ease the pain which antibiotics do not offer. I'm glad my pediatrician does not go antibiotic crazy.