Another burst ear drum-does she need to see doctor? Can she go to school?

[cupofteaplease]

Hi,

Dd1 has had repeated ear infections since she was a small baby. Once it got to the point that one, or both of her ear drums were bursting every 3 weeks on average, they inserted grommets. Naturally, these fell out after 9 months, and slowly, the infections started up again.

She is now 5 and has had 6 incidents of ear infection since November (so not loads, but more than the average child!) She had pain in her ear last month and the doctor confirmed that her ear drum was bulging, but decided against antiobiotics, to see how it went. Luckily, with just pain relief, it was fine. Roll on 4 weeks and she was screaming in pain again. I couldn't get a doctors appointment yesterday, so sent her to school dosed up with pain killers and managed to speak to the doctor on the phone. He again just suggested waiting it out with pain relief.

This morning, she woke up and her ear drum has burst during the night. Obviously the good thing is the pain has lessened. But, does she need antibiotics now it has burst? (I ask, because she is usually already on antibiotics by the time they burst.) Second, would you say she was okay to go to school as the pain has lessened, and she was fine yesterday at school? Or should I be getting her to the doctors?

Also, I'm so worried about the long term effects on her hearing. Each time a new doctor sees her they comment on all the scarring on her ear drums due to the grommets and repeated perforations, but each one says it is 'perfectly normal' for a child. I'm thinking she would benefit from being seen by ENT again, or am I being PFB?

I would take her to the doctors.

I think 6 episodes of infection in 6 months warrants referral back to ent. She shouldnt have to go on like this without help.

cupofteaplease, I had this with DS1 when he was a tiny baby - he had grommets at 10 months!

This may sound "out there" but could your child be allergic to dairy? We were recommended a dairy free diet after the grommets failed to help him, (this from the paediatric consultant and an ENT consultant) and within 3 weeks he was clear of infection. We were lucky he could tolerate goats milk, and now they have lacto-free milk and cheese, so even easier. If you try it, look for hidden sources of dairy -some fish fingers, bread etc contains dairy.

Its really worth trying, and the results are very quick to see. He eventually outgrew the allergy.

In the meantime, I would NOT send her to school, I would take her back to the GP.

She really needs to see the ENT team again.

Spoke to doctor on phone, they are giving antibiotics, told me she is fine to go to school. She said bring her in in 4 weeks to check that it has healed- first time a doctor has suggested that.

Ds is similar, he's just had his 2nd set of grommets in age 3.
When his ear drum bursts they usually want to take a swab to check the infection, so I think the dr. should be seeing her. If she wants to go to school I'd say it's fine, but warn them her hearing may be down.
When I took ds to ENT this year the registrar initially had said to wait and see. When I thought about it I wasn't happy so went back to my GP who wrote to the main consultant and he agreed to see ds. I was in about 2-3 minutes before the consultant signed a form for him to have grommets 2 days later... so it's worth pushing for them.

Thanks for the advice, DeWe. The doctors often don't even want to see her, never mind do a swab. They just prescribe antibiotics over the phone. I will definitely be taking her back in 4 weeks for a check, and I'm going to ask why she hasn't been offered more grommets. That was the only period in her life where she wasn't plagued with earache. Over the winter, the doctors said 'wait until the summer and they will stop'. Now it's May and the doctor said yesterday, 'wait another 2 months and if she has any more we'll think about a hearing test'. I just feel that I need to be more persistent when I next see the doctor, I just go along with what they say as they are, after all, the experts.

That's basically what the registar said. In February she said not worth doing until next winter, come back in 6 months, which would make it August. Ds doesn't usually get them roughly May/June to September/October so I could see her saying in August, hasn't had any for a couple of months maybe he's grown out of it, come back in 6 months... Which would make it February again when the argument she'd given would be valid again so nothing would be done then.
He'd had 4 burst ear drums in the last 6 weeks at that point and had below normal hearing. Wonder what would have made her think grommets were needed?
Do tell them if you feel it's effecting other aspects of her life like speech, behaviour, performance at school, that can make the difference to how they view it.

Definitely get her referred back to the ENT team. We had similar problems with my daughter and once one of the grommets fell out and she started getting ear infections again, the doctor tried to get us to take the "wait and see" approach again. Thankfully DH was quite forceful and said the only thing he'd accept was a referral to the ENT team - was definitely the right course of action.

I would push for her to be seen by the ent team.

My younger daughter had a hearing loss which was really bad before we noticed it. We didn't realise the negatvie impact it had on her until her hearing improved with grommits. Even an urgent nhs appointment can take weeks , after a hearing test dd was referred urgently and we didn't get a letter for an appointment for 2 moths and the appointment for 1 month after that. Thankfully we had private cover so she had the grommits with 3 weeks of her hearing test.