Okay, this is going to sound really awful, but...I'm pretty sure my 2yo's eardrum just burst, and we didn't even know her ear was bothering her. That really sounds like surely we must not have been paying attention to her or something.
She's had some sort of sinus-related virus for about a week (last Sunday through Saturday-ish), with a residual cough. (Everyone else in the house has had it, except for me, so we were/are pretty confident of what it was.) Nasal congestion, throat congestion, etc. - like a really bad cold, but not quite as bad as the flu. At some point that week, I checked her ears with the otoscope, and didn't see any inflammation ('though she does have lots of wax, so maybe I just wasn't seeing around it.) She last ran a fever early Saturday morning. She's sounded and acted perfectly fine since then. She's been totally chipper and cheery and not acted as though anything was bothering her. And then all of a sudden she was poking at her outer ear and it turns out it's because she had junk running out of it. Lots of junk, like watery ear wax.
Soo...I'm pretty confident her eardrum burst. (Can't see into it with the otoscope ATM because the ear canal is still fairly full of "goo.") But I'm wondering...is it reasonable to think that the pressure on it was caused by this overall respiratory infection she had, and that there's no reason to assume she had a separate ear infection? And, more importantly, would you do anything differently at this point (besides keeping water out of the ear, etc.), or just assume it will heal itself at this point?
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