Perforated eardrum not healing.

[OneSliceOfSwissCheese]

My 1 year old's eardrum perforated 7 weeks ago. Since then it's been discharging on and off. The GP has checked it on a couple of occasions and she's had another lot of antibiotics. It was checked most recently a couple of weeks ago and GP couldn't see the perforation but it's obviously still there because a week later, it was discharging again. It clearly hasn't healed at all because I know it's very painful when it goes and DC hasn't been distressed.

I worry about DC's hearing. Her language development is a bit behind her peers and I can't help worrying that having a hole in one of her eardrums that won't heal is not helping matters.

Anyone had any experience of this?

I'm afraid I haven't but I'm hoping my post will bump this a bit for you. Meanwhile I hope dd gets better soon.

Hiya, not sure how much help I'll be but my dd (8) has a perferrated ear drum.

However she is hearing impared (totally unrelated) so there's not much anyone will do about it. Doesn't hurt her or anything. Has been like it for about a year.

I would however ask your gp for a referral to either ent or audiology as I do believe they can be repaired if tgey don't heal natrually. The fact you still have stuff coming out would indicate there's still an infection in the ear, which is preventing it from healing.

Hope this helps a little x

My Ds had similar from about 12 months. Eventually we got referred from the GP to ENT and a low dose three month course of anitbiotics seems to have done the trick. However, in our case it was on going for a long time.
My only advice would be to take pictures and document each time the ear starts getting discharge and present it to your GP to get a referral.
DS had rubbish hearing for a while, but he is now 4 and all is normal.
The only other thing that helped was making sure no water got in it. So we avoided swimming an dused cotton wool covered in vaseline in his ears at bath time to stop water getting in (on advice of the consultant).
Hope your DD feels better soon.

Ooo yes I second the no water thing. Our local pool sell ear plug that are a bit like blue tack which are fab. Only about £5

Has the GP taken a swab of the stuff coming out?

Ds, last time it perforated, had to change antibiotics as the swab showed the infection was resistant to the one we'd been given.

Has it been constantly coming out (infection not clearing), or is it clearing and then coming back (possible reperforating rather than not healing)? It sounds to me like repeat infections not, it not healing.

Ds had 8 perforations in about 3 months, and it was healing in between.

They can (and will) mend the perforation if it doesn't heal, which is important.

However with ds's ears when they go, sometimes he's been in agony, and other times he's hardly noticed, just stuff coming out. An adult friend said that she'd been begging someone to kill her she was in so much pain once, and other times it just went. So it can go without so much pain.

Thanks very much everyone for responding. That's really helpful.

I didn't realise the drum could perforate without much pain.

I am documenting every incidence of discharging. Last time I went to the GP she said we didn't need to bring her back unless DD had a high temp that hadn't come down after 4 days . Obviously I don't keep wanting to dose her up with antibiotics if they aren't needed but it's been very gunky again today.

I haven't taken her swimming since it went originally and we're very careful in the bath when we're washing her hair.

Thanks again all :)