I had several as a kid. I've had many in my adult life. I'm an asthmatic and URIs are very dangerous. All my kids have had a LOT of ear infections, so they've had a bunch of courses of treatment.

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I've had an average of something like one course a year (maybe more, but certainly not less) throughout my life.

This is Not Normal in my family; I am prone to UTIs, and the valve thingies between bladder and kidneys tend to malfunction, and now that I am in charge of my own medical needs, I generally get the doctors in before they get bad on the grounds that I know very well that they don't go away. Interestingly, I've found that I've had fewer overall since I began this policy. I also end up with sinus infections within a couple of weeks of being exposed to sufficient airborne particles (like a local bushfire, or spending several uninterrupted hours in the company of people who effectively chainsmoke).

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The worst experience I've had with antibiotics is after getting the thingy in my eyelid excised. You have to smear antibiotics on your lashline at regular intervals for a bit, and that stuff travels down your lachrymal ducts. And it tastes REVOLTING.

Second-worst is any time I've been on the antibiotic where I lose an average of a kilo a day (penecillin intolerance SARCASTIC!YAY).

Third-worst is the antibiotic that sends me rapid-cycling bipolar. Which I figured out as a teenager, having been prescribed that one for UTIs for many many years, probably since I was a toddler.

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I have no problem believing "up to 20". I would have had close to a course per year, and A. is already ahead of that rate.

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I'm told I had frequent life-threatening attacks of bronchitis in my first three years; my survival is a testament to Amoxycillin. Subsequently I had much more of an over-use problem with topical corticosteroids for eczema (which only really cleared up after I hit 40), but I'd be surprised if I was on antibiotics less often than once every two years throughout childhood/adolescence.

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I used to get pretty frequent ear infections as a kid, but I'm not sure there were any antibiotics involved - I have far too many memories of just having to put up with it >.<

Even assuming I did get antibiotics for the worst ones, I would still expect to be around 10, at most. Across adulthood there'd be zero as far as I can recall. Haven't been to a doctor for anything but immigration purposes since well before I moved down here.

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I can remember a couple of ear infections and that was probably it. I didn't get sick much as a kid, and when I did I didn't get very sick. I've probably had those twenty courses in last three years though, with all the tonsillitis and so on.

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