Ear Thermometers: Accurate... Unless You Take Two Readings?
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Anonymous
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Has anyone else noticed how ear thermometers are praised for their accuracy, but when you take two temperatures back-to-back (or from both sides of the baby's head), they somehow never match? Are they really reliable, or is it just hit-or-miss? Our pediatrician insists they are reliable.
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Anonymous
| I have never noticed this because why are you taking 2 temperatures back to back? What information did it not give you the first time? Just give your kid some hydration, maybe some advil/tylenol if uncomfortable, and go about your sick day. |
Anonymous
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Because I'm trying to figure out if the Motrin is working and they're burning up!
The old fashioned way gave me the same result every time. |
Anonymous
| I’ve never found them to be farther off than .2 of a degree. How different are your readings? |
Anonymous
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103.7 right and 101.6 left
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Anonymous
| 102.7 right and 101 left |
Anonymous
| I get different temps in different ears. I always assumed it was just me not getting the temp thing correctly in one ear. |
Anonymous
| Lol .. same issue. We just went through a bout of bad prolonged illness in our house and this kind of drove me crazy. I'm not sure if it's always the second time it goes up, or if different ears have different readings?? |
Anonymous
| Anal thermometers are better, and you only have one place to put it. |
Anonymous
| I take one in the left ear, two in the right. Usually the second and third reading are pretty close. It is very odd...And yes, anal ones are much more accurate (and with our ear thermometer, tend to be close to the second and third read, at least they used to be when we still used them; the first read of the ear one is totally off, usually too low). |
Anonymous
Sometimes it goes down for me |
Anonymous
| I hated ear thermometers. I was always getting different readings and didn’t trust their accuracy. At the start of COVID, I bought a temporal thermometer (Smartglow Exergen) that I trust a lot more. |
Anonymous
| Everyone knows you don't measure anything a even number of times. |
Anonymous
| For myself I still use the glass and mercury thermometer I took to college. |