Nearly 5 years post grommets - should DD still get pain if she gets water in her ears?

[dollybird]

She is nearly 9 and we still have to be reeallly careful to not get water in her ears or she will cry for hours afterwards. I'm not sure if it's the association of getting an ear infection (she would usually get one after getting water in her ears), or if it actually hurts. Should it still be hurting after all this time? Worth a trip to the gp to check?

Worth a check, for sure.
I had so many burst eardrums as a kid that my eardrums got really thin, so by the time I was 15 it really hurt any time there was any pressure on them - I couldn't put my head in the bathwater to wash my hair, for example.

10 years later my ENT doc said they'd grown back to decent thickness and try bathing, swimming etc - they've been fine since.

thanks notcitrus - that's exactly it - she puts a flannel over her ears and I rinse her hair for her, but if she doesn't get the flannel on quite right and a tiny bit of water gets in I don't hear the end of it. she has ear plugs but doesn't really like them. I'm just thinking I can't rinse her hair for her forever..

She had about 6 infections a year from 4 months to 4 years and then about 3 or 4 since the grommets but none for about 18 months I reckon. Good to know it may get better