Antibiotics???

Ok, I am a real freak about giving my child antibiotics. I hate to do it. I love good bacteria and I DO NOT like to kill it. I am constantly finding ways to innoculate our family with the friendly little guys from raw milk to kiefer (a yogurt-like substance) to kombucha tea. Needless to say, I was thrilled when the doc in the ER in Missouri looked at the cut on Ellie's head and declared it to be "clean" and that she "wouldn't need any antibiotics". It made me proud (in a weird way) and happy that we were swimming in a chlorinated pool.

The doc ALSO said that if it turned red, drained or opened, to take her back in to get it looked at. Well, after a few days, the wounded area started swelling up and she had quite a lump under the tape strips. I figured it was just normal swelling and the damaged tissues were just repairing themselves. After a week, it started leaking and she had a small stream running over her eyebrow. To me, it looked like it just needed to drain. As it drained, the swelling from the past few days was going down. She didn't have a fever, nor was it draining any funky stuff, but I took her to a Quick Care anyhow because I was told to (and they actually ARE quick). The doctor swabbed her to have it tested and gave me a prescription for, you guessed it... antibiotics. Yep, the arch enemy of everything I work to build up in her system. So, for fear of DCFS (and the infection was close to a pretty important organ), I went to fill the prescription for FREE! That's right, Meijer has a Free Antibiotics program (which just goes to show how overused they are). I've realized, too, that they make children's antibiotics waaaaay to tasty. Ellie got so excited when it was time to get her medicine, that all of the other kids were begging me to let them jump off rocks and cut their heads open too. Being the paranoid mom that I am, we would rotate the antibiotic doses (morning and night) with probiotic doses (midday and midnight... just kidding on the midnight thing). After day three of juggling meds and dealing with the mental anguish of destroying my daughters internal ecosystem, the doc called with the results of her swabbing and casually says, "there's no infection, just normal flora".... Ugh.