How quick did grommets work for your DC?

[birdseed]

DS1 had grommets today. Expected to notice the difference almost immediately, but haven't. Am worried. Anyone else had this but their DC's hearing has improved over a few days (or longer)? I am keen to have some hope over this, but worried that there might be something more serious going on than just glue ear.

HI birdseed...My ds age 9 had his grommits put in January this year (31st)...I to was expecting a dramatic improvement ,a bit like when you have your ears syringed sort of thing ...but ..no he said he felt no different ! He kept saying the same till we FINALLY got our 6 weeek follow up appointment 3 months later (!!!) and the hearing test DID show an improvement in his hearing .......He still cant notice it ????

My ds problem was more air pressure in the ear as appossed to glue/liquid I think ?

The problem we had was excessive bleeding from one ear which caused a clot over one grommitbut they have decided to leave it as too remove the clot and wax might cause more bleeding and therefore we would be back to square one .

You dont say how old your dc is but I am presuming younger then mine ...so if mine cant tell the difference then I don't suppos your's would either !!!

A few extra days off school and lots of TLC and I am sure your ds will be fine...I have got lots of tips on swimming and hair washing if you want .

HTH

I remember suddenly noticing an improvement in my hearing perhaps a couple of days after one of my operations as a child. I could hear the clock ticking in the living room that I'd never been able to hear before. But there was no startling movie-style moment (I know you're not really expecting this!) - we adapt so quickly to what we can and can't do, it may simply not occur to your ds that he can hear different things. Plus if he's in hospital he's hearing different things anyway, if you see what I mean.

Thank you for your replies.

Any tips on hair washing and swimming would be great.

He is 3 and still says 'what did you say?' an awful lot after the operation, and doesn't seem to have heard often. I was expecting that to have stopped.

I think they get into a habit of saying "what do you say?"

With my ds it took a few days to settle, before a difference was noticed. The first time he was quite ill afterwards as he had an infection, so his temperature was rushing up straight after the operation.
The second time I noticed the next time we went to the supermarket. I called him when he walked away, and he turned round and answered! Before that I needed to get in front of him so he could see my lips move. It wasn't for about 6 months later in autumn when he commented he could hear the leaves crunching and they hadn't last year, he made any comment on it.

There is a reason they don't test the hearing for 6 weeks, they told me-it does take a bit of time.

Hairwashing we used cotton wool in his ears. He used to call them "clouds in his ears" and offer to fetch "clouds" if anyone else was washing hair.

DS had them put in 18mths ago. None of us noticed any discernable difference

We tried cotton wool with vaseline on it but ds didn't like the feelof it afterwards so I got him some from swimming pool....they are like lumps of gel that you mould around the ear opening .They stay in place and he has been swimming with them as well with a swimming hat.

I washed his hair with him bending over the bath.

Hearing might take a while to be noticed as there is alot of swelling going on at the moment.

DS had an ear band-it and really liked it. It's waxy ear plugs and a headband.

I think DS had got used to zoning out his surroundings so we didn't really notice any dramatic difference. His concentration at school got better though.

I think my parents noticed that I gradually got less quiet around other people. But of course, having been used to not joining in conversations, I didn't suddenly start sticking my oar in just cos I could hear what people were saying (how times change ... I think some of my colleagues might like it if I went back to having glue ear, only now I have instant messenger to tell them they're talking bollocks instead).

DD screamed in the car on the way home from hospital that it was too noisy.

The lady that did the hearing tests made ear plugs from some air drying putty stuff. The consultant said bath water was more of an issue than swimming water.