I agree with the advice to get him to sleep with his head elevated. I also would check back with the pediatrician about the length of the infection, a severe cold that lasts longer than 3 weeks is something to look into. If it's still a virus, nothing else can be done, but it can't hurt to check.
As for the FDA and the medications, how parents used it in the past is less the issue and more the issue that the drug companies never tested these drugs in children under two years of age and there have been infants who were given the medications as directed and died from the side effects of those medications. They just are not safe to use in infants. I'm grateful that our FDA is a strict as it is, other countries that do not have a watchdog as diligent as ours have a higher death rate from medications across the board.
I feel your pain on the sleep deprivation, my son had undiagnosed chronic ear infections and I lost lots of sleep until I changed pediatricians. Then life was more normal. I was lucky, my son never got virus based infections, only bacterial ones. Definitely try the sleep sitting up routine, I do it now myself.