glue ear - trends in families

[verybusyspider]

ds1 had grommets in March (4 at time), ds2 had them in July (3.5 years) and now ds3 (27 months) has impaired hearing with speach and language delay due to glue ear - dh had 2 sets of grommets as a child, I'm struggling to get ds3 referred sooner rather than later because I'm being constantly told 'glue ear is not genetic'

The boys only had a handful of ear infections, we have none of the 'common' indicators ie we are a non smoking household and they were all breastfeed for at least 6 months. ds3 is the first one to have his speech picked up by the health visitor (all with hind sight he sounds like ds1)

Has anyone else got several children with glue ear and having grommets? I have contacted this study www.nds.ox.ac.uk/research/otolaryngology-research/otitis-media-research but I'm struggling to get a referral the NHS loves its 'watchful waiting' to see if will go away, I'm concerned I have yet another child who can't hear - ds1 had a terrible time in reception because of it.... I'm going to see another GP this afternoon with ds3 and wondered if I'm alone?

I always forget to convert links
www.nds.ox.ac.uk/research/otolaryngology-research/otitis-media-research

My ds (age 4) has bad glue ear and grommets (second set) with constant ear infections when grommets are out. He's under SALT.
Neither dd1 or dd2 (10 and 7) have had more than a couple of ear infections each.
They were all bf until after age 2yo.

Dh used to get ear ache, but not glue ear, and I didn't ever get it.

One cause of glue ear is the ear channel being thin, which I'd guess could easily be genetic (like having a big head or something) but it's not genetic in our case as far as I can tell.

I suppose we have one of the common indicators - glue ear is more common in boys than girls... wish I could understand why that is but surely that suggests genetic predisposition...

May be not necessarily more common, but perhaps more likely to be picked up on? Girls are more likely to follow the crowd and be able to hide a hearing problem, I think. Perhaps boys in general have thinner tubes? Or longer ones? Due to shape of a boy's face maybe. I don't think that necessarily means it's genetic anyway

For example, my dd2 was born without a hand. There are genetic reasons in some cases, but in the majority there is no known reason. If you take the children with some form of congenital limb loss (without a known cause): Roughly:
2/3 are girls
2/3 effects the upper limbs
2/3 effects the left hand side
And the majority of upper limb difficiencies (but I can't remember what proportion) the limb is effected from somewhere between the wrist and the elbow.

ds's hearing problem only got picked up because we wanted to rule out sight and hearing difficulties, school went rushing off getting him assessed by an ed psyc so I think hearing can indeed be masked in different ways.

Its interesting that you say about the shape of faces, thats dh's theory that shape of tubes dictates whether they can drain fluid build up effectively or it builds up and ours must have heads like his, rubbish odds to have all 3 with it though, time to buy a lottery ticket I think! but at least the GP today was great and referred us due to ds's speech and health visitors recommendation, are we really the only family to have more than one with grommets?? surely not...

I have 3 children all who had glue ear. 2 had adenotonsilectomy plus grommits. One had no surgery and has grown out of it.

I don't think grommits existed in the 60s but my dh had his tonsils removed at a very young age, I should have had mine removed at 16 but bottled out so we've both had ENT issues.

Presumably children can be predisposed to it if they have similar ENT structures ie narrow tubes to their parents.

thanks saggar - bump - anyone else?