Hearing test

[PerkyOchrePeer]

I am struggling to hear properly but I can hear most things so I went to get a hearing test after having wax removed and the results were that I have some hearing loss in both ears. When I went to the GP the GP looked and said I had cattarh and was given medication. At the hospital the audiologiat did a test to see if my èars were blocked, and the test revealed they were clear so the audiologist said you do not have cattarh and I said but the doctor told me I did and the doctors said she could see by looking inside my ears and from time to time I can hear crackling and the GP said thats because of the cattarh. The audiologist said if you disagree with the result of the test i suggest you go back to your GP and I then said the doctor gave me medication and a doctor would never have given me medication if she did not think that my ears were blocked and all the audiologist said to me was please will you take it up with your GP.

I am really baffled about this because I have a very good GP who would not make such a mistake and give me medication for nothing

What else did you want the audiologist to say? They gave their diagnosis, you said no my GP said it's cattarh so they said go back to your GP then. They aren't going to sit and argue with you. If you don't value their professional opinion then you are wasting their time and yours and delaying people who want their help from getting it.

The only thing I am querying is why my GP told me my ears were blocked and the audiologist said by ears are not blocked and they told me to go back to my GP to query this. The audiologist is also referring me to the ear nose and throat doctor because she said the other thing that showed up was that I have a bone problem in the middle and the inner ear and for that I need to see an ENT doctor. I do have osteoporosis and I looked up osteoporosis and the inner ear bones and it said that people with osteoporosis which affects every bone in their body can suffer from hearing loss so when I go to see the en tu doctor I would discuss this with them and see what they say. The audiologist said hearing aids would help me but first I need to see the ENT doctor and take it from there

My GP said to me you clearly need to get the cattarh cleared by medication and if the medication does not work then you may have to have surgery for them to insert grommets and clear it that way and I don't think my GP would say all that to me if she did not genuinely think my ears were blocked so I'm going to go back and query this

I’m an audiologist. You cannot confirm the presence of middle ear fluid just by looking in someone’s ears (which is what your GP did). You need to do a test called a tympanometry which I assume is what the the audiologist did. This test tells you definitively whether there is fluid in the middle ear. I would trust an audiologist over a GP regarding this any day - the audiologist is the specialist, that’s why the GP referred you - for a specialist opinion.

Your doctor may indeed think that you have fluid in the middle ear. Your GP may be wrong.

If you have persistent glue ear (otitis media) you might need grommets; there is no medicine that will clear it. Noone will give you grommets because of catarrh.

Trust your Audiologist as far as hearing is concerned. GPs are generalists and refer people on for a reason.

Well I'm being referred to the ear nose and throat doctor and they can tell me what else is going on because the audiologist said to me I'm only here to test your hearing I am not a doctor so will you discuss any further issues with the ear nose and throat specialists

Good. It sounds like ENT is who you need to see. There is no point to going back to your GP to query things.