- Paracetamol for pain and fever.
- Oral antibiotics for 10 days. Usually amoxycillin is used.
- If there is no decrease in pain and no drop in fever after 24 hours of antibiotics, the child should be referred to an ENT (ear, nose and throat) clinic.
- Follow up to make sure that the otitis media has fully recovered.
- Ear drops and oral decongestants do not help.
With correct treatment, perforation of the eardrum should heal within 2 weeks. Failure or incorrect treatment may lead to chronic suppurative or secretory otitis media.
The most important treatment in otitis media is pain control and antibiotics in young children.
In older children, acute otitis media will often recover without antibiotics. If severe otitis media does not respond to antibiotics, surgical drainage of the middle ear may be required. Children under 2 years should always be given antibiotics.