ears and antibiotics

i took evalana for her first sick baby doctor appointment today. she's had a runny nose and cough for a week, but she's been extra fussy yesterday and this morning, so i thought we should go have someone check her out. Our doctor was full today, so we saw a different doctor who I hadn't met before. He was nice, but we didn't really agree with each other. He said her left ear is a little red, so he was going to prescribe some antibiotics. I told him that i'm really not comfortable with giving her antibiotics unless she needs them. I asked if he thought the infection would go away on its own. He said some do, but he didn't feel like the side effects of the antibiotics are that bad, so it's worth taking them. I had read that most ear infections go away without antibiotics, and I also really don't want Evalana to lose all of that good bacteria in her digestive system that we've worked on for seven months. I'm hoping she might be able to tolerate my eating more foods, whenever she gets healthy enough that I'm able to retest some of our problem foods. And it seems like most drugs have all sorts of ingredients that I'd rather not give her if I don't have to (dyes, preservatives, chemicals, foods she is sensitive to...). So finally the doctor just gave me a prescription for some pain relief ear drops. I went to CVS and found out the drops would cost $160. The pharmacy technician said there was a very similar drug that would be much cheaper, so she left a message with the doctor to see if he would prescribe that instead, but I never heard back from the pharmacy today. The pharmicist was very helpful and agreed with my decision about the antibiotics. He said it should be obvious if her ear gets worse since she's not all that upset at this point. I got some OTC homeopathic earache drops and headed home. She seems to be having a decent evening. Earlier she was laughing so hard at her doggies who were both laying right beside her that she feel over and just kept laughing. She's sleeping well now, so we'll see how tomorrow goes.