My babies ear drums have burst 22 times!!!!!

[spill3]

Please help me!! I am looking for some advice with regard to my baby. He is 18 months old and ever since he was about 6 months old has suffered with recurring burst ear drums. To begin with they were caused with ear infections and a course of antibiotics were the answer but when they kept happening that wasn't working. Every time he gets a cold the pressure builds up behind the ear drum causing him a lot of pain and then eventually they burst and the mucus comes out and he is okay again. The specialist we are seeing has diagnosed him with glue ear and short term it is definitely effecting his hearing. Long term, we are very worried how the burst ear drums now 22 times!, will effect his hearing. We have tried cranial massage to try to ease the pressure and the latest attempt is to change his diet by taking away all dairy products. Will try anything, just need help and hopefully another mother that has been through or is going through the same nightmare.

Gosh you poor thing - and poor baby. DS had continual problems with his ears and ended up having grommets and t-tubes on a number of occasions for glue ear. He's now 21 and his hearing is fine - except when it suits him not to hear!!

Have you spoken to the specialist about your (very understandable) concerns?

His ear drums will scar and he will lose some hearing if they don't sort this out. Our dd has had burst eardrums twice. It coming up to winter so it'll get worse when he gets colds and things.
When his next appointment?
We found a Dehumidifier helped and not going swimming.

Inflammation from food allergies may be the answer - it started not long after weaning?

Top of my list of suspects would be cows milk products, egg products, gluten containing grains and maize.

If you do and exclusion diet you need to be very careful with label reading. Exclude things for at least 6weeks. Then reintroduce and see if symptoms return. It will be easier to cook everything from scratch, will help you keep track of things.

If you want to do a total exclusion diet all at once, "pear and lamb" is pretty easy, covers the main nutritional bases (it's pear, lamb and white rice), it wont do any harm at all for a couple of weeks then you can add in other low risk foods, and there will soon be plenty of variety back in the diet.

Google allergy exclusion diets or seek advice... Exclusion done properly will give better answers/info than allergy testing but testing is probably still worth doing as it may back up the results of exclusion, or point you in the direction of foods which might be a problem.

Other than food - pet hair allergy? Pollen allergy? Are there other signs of possible allergy (skin ok? Red eyes? Runny nose? That sort of thing).

I'm surprised you haven't been referred for surgery. My son had a lot of ear/adenoid infections as a baby and then had grommets in/adenoids out at 18 months. Where are you? I was in Hertfordshire, saw a doctor in Luton who amazingly referred us to Great Ormond Street very quickly for the op (because of his age, or he would've gone locally), where we've had excellent treatment.