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The doctor said it was viral. Then he prescribed antibiotics anyway. I need someone to tell me I'm not crazy for feeling weird about this. My daughter is fourteen months old. She's had three ear infections since September. The first one I didn't even question it. Doctor said ear infection, here's amoxicillin, ten days, done. Fine. Second one was six weeks later. Different ear this time. Same antibiotic. Ten more days. Her stomach was destroyed. I'm talking diarrhea for two straight weeks after she finished the course. She'd scream every time she had a dirty diaper because her skin was so raw from it. I called the nurse line and they said it was a normal side effect. Normal. My baby screaming in pain from a side effect of the medicine that was supposed to help her is normal. The thing is I read enough to know what antibiotics do to a baby's gut. I know about the microbiome. I know every round wipes out good bacteria along with the bad. I know that the more you use them the less effective they become. I know all of this and I still gave them to her because what else was I supposed to do. She had a fever of 102 and was screaming and pulling at her ears and I'm not going to just sit there and watch her suffer because I read an article about gut health. But I felt guilty the entire ten days. Every dose. Holding her arms down because she gags on the syringe and spits half of it back up and cries so hard she can barely breathe. My husband standing behind me saying maybe we should just skip it and me snapping at him because what do you think I'm doing this for fun. Like I enjoy restraining my daughter to force medicine down her throat that's going to give her diarrhea for two weeks. Third one was three weeks ago. Both ears this time. Double ear infection. She had a fever of 102 for four days and I could tell she was miserable. Pulling at both ears, wouldn't eat, barely sleeping. We were up every two hours for a week. My husband took off Monday and I took off Tuesday through Thursday because we'd already used up all our sick days trading back and forth since she started daycare in August. The doctor looked in her ears and said there was fluid buildup but he wasn't sure it was actually infected. Said it could be viral. Could be bacterial. He couldn't tell just by looking. Then he said the thing that made my stomach drop. He said I could take the antibiotics just in case. He said it like he was doing me a favor. Like it was for my peace of mind. Peace of mind. That's what he said. And the worst part is he's a good doctor. I like him. He wasn't being dismissive. He was being honest. He was telling me that he didn't know if this was bacterial or viral and the only way to find out would be to wait and see and bring her back in five days. But we both knew I couldn't do that. Because daycare requires either 24 hours fever-free or a doctor's note saying she's on treatment. Without that note she can't go back. If she can't go back I can't work. If I can't work again this month I honestly don't know what happens with my job. My manager already made a comment last week about how she hopes things settle down at home soon. That's HR language for we're keeping track. So I took the prescription. For an infection the doctor wasn't sure was bacterial. Because a daycare policy requires it. And because I need to keep my job. I'm standing at the pharmacy waiting for these antibiotics and I'm doing the math in my head. Three rounds of antibiotics in five months. She's fourteen months old. Her gut has been destroyed and rebuilt and destroyed again three times. Her diaper rash from the last round just healed two weeks ago. And now I'm about to start the whole cycle over for something that might be viral. The pharmacist was an older woman. She was going through the usual when she looked at the screen and then looked at me and said something like has she been on amoxicillin recently. I said yeah twice since September. She kind of paused. She didn't say don't give it to her. She didn't overstep. But she said something I think about every single day now. She said you know the antibiotics are for the bacterial part. If there's a virus underneath it the antibiotics aren't touching that. She said most of these ear infections in little ones start viral and sometimes bacteria moves in after. She said a lot of moms don't realize the virus is the thing that keeps coming back because nobody's addressing it. The antibiotics kill whatever bacteria is there but the virus that started the whole thing is still sitting there waiting. I asked her what she meant. She said viruses have a protective coating around them. She compared it to a pill with an enteric coating. She said you know how some pills have that outer layer so they don't dissolve in the stomach? Viruses have something similar. An outer shell that keeps them intact so the immune system can't break them down. She said that's why these things drag on and come back. The immune system sees the virus but it can't get through the coating to destroy it. Everything I was giving her — the elderberry gummies every morning, the vitamin C drops, the probiotics — all of that was making her immune system work harder. But her immune system was already working. It just couldn't get through. I asked her so what am I supposed to do about that. She told me about a compound in oregano oil called carvacrol. She said it interacts with the outer coating of the virus directly. Doesn't boost the immune system. Actually addresses the protective layer that's hiding the virus. She said her daughter uses it for her kids. She said there's a children's version in a softgel and you don't even give it by mouth. You prick the softgel open and rub the oil on the bottoms of their feet with a little coconut oil at bedtime. I almost laughed. Their feet? She said the skin on the bottom of the feet absorbs it. Thirty seconds. They don't even wake up. I went home and looked it up. The product is called Germ Gems. Wild oregano oil and black seed oil in a softgel. The black seed oil has something called thymoquinone that supports the immune cells themselves while the carvacrol from the oregano works on the virus coating. So you're getting at the virus from two sides basically. I was skeptical. I've spent so much money on things that were supposed to help. The elderberry alone was forty dollars a month. The probiotics were another thirty. The vitamin C drops. The extra humidifier for her room. I've probably spent three hundred dollars on supplements since September and she still got three ear infections. So yeah I wasn't exactly jumping at another thing to buy. But I ordered it anyway because I was running out of options and the only alternative was a fourth round of antibiotics before she turns two. First two weeks I didn't notice anything dramatic. She had a runny nose that came and went. I kept doing the feet thing every night. Just pricking the softgel, rubbing it on her feet with coconut oil, putting her socks on. She slept right through it. Third week the runny nose cleared and it just stayed clear. Then the real test happened. A stomach bug went through her daycare room. Five kids went home over two days. I got the email from daycare and my whole body tensed up. I picked her up early because I was sure she was going to be next. She was fine. A little fussy that evening. I thought okay here it comes. Next morning she woke up happy. Ate breakfast. Went to daycare. It never hit her. Two weeks after that an ear infection went through the infant room. Three babies got sent home. I kept waiting. Checking her ears for pulling. Watching for fever. Nothing. She was completely fine. That was two months ago. She hasn't had an ear infection since. She hasn't been on antibiotics since. She's had one cold that lasted three days and didn't turn into anything else. Her skin cleared up. She doesn't scream at diaper changes anymore. That alone was worth it honestly. I still have that last bottle of amoxicillin in the fridge. I check on it sometimes like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. But every week that goes by where she doesn't need it I feel a little less crazy about the whole thing. I'm not saying this cured anything. I want to be really clear about that. I'm saying that for the first time since she started daycare I'm not standing in a doctor's office being handed a prescription I'm not sure about. I'm not holding her down while she cries. Her stomach isn't wrecked. And I stopped lying awake at night wondering if this is the round of antibiotics that stops working when she actually needs them. I rub oil on her feet at bedtime. She doesn't even know I'm doing it. Thirty seconds and I put her socks on and she sleeps through the whole night. If you're standing at that pharmacy counter right now holding a just in case prescription for a baby whose stomach is already wrecked from the last round, I stood in that exact spot three months ago. And it was a pharmacist who told me what nobody else would. Germ Gems. That's what it's called. Just look it up.