<s>[INST] How is acute otitis media diagnosed? [/INST] First, your doctor will ask about how long symptoms have been present, presence of ear pain, any discharge from the ear, and if there has been a fever. Your doctor may also inquire about a previous history of ear infections.

Your healthcare provider can look into your child’s ear to see if there is an infection. An instrument called an otoscope, a cone-shaped tool with a light, is used to view the eardrum.
Your healthcare provider may look for areas of dullness or redness, fluid behind the eardrum, blood or pus inside the middle ear, or a perforated eardrum (a hole in the eardrum).
The doctor may use a puff of air to see if the eardrum moves or do a test called a tympanogram that measures how the eardrum moves.
Sometimes wax (cerumen) may block the ear and this will need to be removed.
A hearing test or other more advanced tests may rarely be needed in more hard-to-treat cases. Source: DRUGS.COM. Link: https://www.drugs.com/article/middle-ear-infections-children.html. Field: Otolaryngology. Disease: Ear Infection </s>