# 4 year old mouth wound - antibiotics?



## jamiescottie (Jan 2, 2009)

Hello, I'm hoping for some advice..

My 4 1/2 year old went down the slide yesterday with a 2 ft long, 1/2" diameter PVC pipe in his mouth and has a gash on the roof of his mouth near the back by the throat. My husband and I are pretty shaken, he has never been hurt like this before. But, he is in good spirits and the pediatrician said he is prescribing antibiotics "just in case" an infection develops. We have never given him any kind of medication, not even Tylenol, so we are wondering if this is absolutely necessary. Our pediatrician always says he is overly cautious. But, we are leaning towards giving him the antibiotics because we don't want to mess around. We are doing salt water swishing frequently, but I'm not sure how much salt is actually getting back there because he hates doing it and I think he might be keeping most of the water towards the front of his mouth.

Thank you all in advance for any advice!

Jamie


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## Ratchet (Mar 24, 2011)

Does he let you look at it? One option would be only starting the antibiotics if it starts to look bad at all. It is harder to treat once an infection has already set in, but on the other hand, it has a good chance of not getting infected. Is it 'absolutely' necessary? IMO probably not. Like, not everyone who has a tooth pulled is on antibiotics, and that's a pretty big hole in your mouth (of course, made under cleaner circumstances, but all the usual mouth bacteria are still swimming around in there).


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## LTurtle (Aug 7, 2012)

I wouldn't use the antibiotics unless there appeared to be an infection. Keep an eye out for an increase in swelling, oozing pus, an unpleasant odor or fever. Otherwise just keep it clean. Instead of salt water you could try watering down some vinegar (apple cider vinegar?) and having him swish & swallow. Vinegar will topically kill a lot of nasties, but not upset his whole system, plus he can swallow it so it'll definitely get to the back of his mouth.
Mouth wounds heal really fast, and a healthy body is good at fending off germs, so its unlikely to be a problems beyond being sore for bit.


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