Glue Ear and treatment

[AllAboardTheMilkTrain]

Hi all...

My LO is 23 months, diagnosed with Glue ear 4months ago (although I noticed his hearing wasn't great after his 1st birthday)

He has confirmed mild to moderate hearing loss. 2 ENT consultant have recommended grommets but Dad and I aren't keen.

We've been looking into the alternative treatment of hearing aids, although it's not actually a treatment but to help with his speech development as he current has only sounds, no clear words.

LO is also receiving treatment from an osteopath so we are hopeful this will help clear the glue ears itself.

My main call for help is around the hearings aids...can anyone offer any words/experience or advice as I've had no experience with them at all. I understand it may be a challenge getting LO to wear them but it terms of actually how they work, an are they suitable to use for glue ear??? I've had mixed advice from ENT consultants!!

Thanks so much
Mum

My DD has hearing aids after two lots of grommets (aged about 3 and about 4) which only worked for a short period in alleviating glue ear and hence, in her case, hearing loss. We opted for hearing aids as further sets of grommets were likely to damage ear drum and they only alleviate they do not cure glue ear. We did not go down the hearing aid route until she just turned 5 though - by which time she was old enough to understand why they were a great thing and has always worn them happily. She got to choose both the colour of the aids and the colour of the moulds (which get changed every year or so at which stage she can swap to a different colour).

We are now at a stage where we have periods that she does not need them but when her hearing goes down we can use them so she never misses out at school. She also has volume control on them so she can adjust if needed. We were told hearing aids work great for glue ear as the sound is only muffled by the glue ear not distorted so amplification is great.

There are a few key facts to consider (1) for many children glue ear is a short lived problem hence the deliberate delay in doing anything, (2) grommets alleviate glue ear but do not cure it - for a large proportion of children one set of grommets is all they need to get them through a prolonged episode of glue ear (3) if glue ear persists a child with hearing aids gets in school support from the hearing support services (in our area termly check ups of how child is coping in school environment, observation of how teacher modifies behaviour to ensure lessons are fully inclusive to hearing impaired children (I.e. checking seating position, making sure teacher doesn't look away whilst talking to the children) and within school verbal hearing test ). A child with repeat sets of grommets does not get this support.

I agree a lot with reallytired & think it's very wise to consider other options than surgery. My son also had multiple grommets for infections & also had / has hearing aids. He did have the BAHA on a headband at around 3 years & last year (age 10) had the permanent BAHA.

Grommets have left his ears permanently scarred, and I would have to say that if his little brother displayed signs of glue ear I would be very very reluctant to let him have them.

All that said I also know of plenty of people whose children have had them with no difficulty. Those were the children whose symptoms were perhaps less serious in the first place though. Be guided by your consultant.

I think the OP is caught between a rock and a hard place. I can understand her fears and she is right that it is is a risk. There is a 1 in 100 chance of grommets going wrong. However her child's hearing problems must be pretty desperate if two different consultants have recommended them.

Two years old is a really important age for developing speech. I feel that grommets on a two year old child is probably worth the risks. Getting a two year old to wear hearing aids would be a challenge. Getting an older child to wear hearing aids is far easier as you can reason with them.

However I would disagree with a repeat set of grommets. The risks get bigger every operation.

Just to add, in our hospital audiology (who deal with hearing aids) and ENT are two entirely separate departments (although their clinics are held in the same place in our hospital). We had to request a referal to audiology from the ENT consultants in order to get a proper discussion and understanding of how hearing aids would help. The ENT consultants were quite reluctant as their focus is surgery and trying to fix the problem. Audiology's focus is on using hearing aids. We were under both departments for 3 years until ENT finally acknowledged that we were not going to be persuaded to go for yet another set of grommets.

Sometimes DD would have hearing tests less than a month apart, conducted by each department, and there was no cross over between departments with ENT never looking at the results obtained by audiology - on one ocassion when I showed the ENT consultant the audiology report from a month before he said if he had seen my DD then, he would have insisted on another set of grommets but in the meantime the fliud had cleared and the new hearing test was much better so he acknowledged that maybe our chosen route of hearing aids was better.

If we had to start from the beginning again I still would have tried a set of grommets but not bothered with the second set and moved on to hearing aids then.

What ever you do with glue ear it will resolve eventually with growth. Classically by "the 6th summer" but for my DD she was 12!

We had amazing results from grommets - BUT this was done not for hearing issues (she was deafened but was "keeping up"/exceeding speech/academic milestones etc) but for recurrent infections.

If your child has infections every month then get the grommets, no question- she just spend at least 1/4 of her life ( a week a month) being ill!

Hearing wise yep grommets are marvellous etc but they aren't a " cure". THey just keep you going. Hearing aids are worth a try if that's the route you'd prefer.

Grommets do have down sides- non healing perforations esp after multiple sets ( which you are likely to need as he's young) scarred drums , ear infections , restrictions to diving etc.

I agree it is ridicolous that there is not closer cooperation with ENT and paediatric audiology. Ds only got a referal to paediatric audiology because he was under a community paediatrian about developmental delay.

There are downsides to both surgery and hearing aids. I feel a discussion of all options is best for the child.

"If we had to start from the beginning again I still would have tried a set of grommets but not bothered with the second set and moved on to hearing aids then."

Thats sounds very sensible. I think I would take the same course of action if dd had glue ear.

I would like to thank everyone for all your posts. They have been really helpful. We are still in discussion stages with the ENT but with everyone's input I feel more informed and the support is great :)