Ears after grommets operation

[Willis15]

DD had grommets fitted two weeks ago after a year of being unwell. She is permanently snotty and often develops a really bad cough and fever. ENT diagnosed glue ear and insisted on fitting grommets.
Since the grommets were fitted her symptoms have been worse and she has what looks like skin growing over her ear canal. A week ago I managed to get some cipro drops from the gp which removed the skin at first but it appears to have grown back. The ENT department are refusing to see her again. It is not residue from the drops but the white stuff is. She currently has a fever and is as bad as ever so the grommets are obviously not the solution to her problem. Has anyone ever seen anything like this?

That's appalling that the ENT are refusing to see her. If she's just 2 weeks post op and running a fever (? Over 39c ?)I'd be insisting she was seen immediately.
My DS has had several grommets, some have grown over but that was after 12 month check up, to be honest I never looked in his ear.

No. Both my DC were grommetted at 14 and 21 months respectively. Miracles on both occasions. Both times I had to be assertive and pay for it. Nobody insisted. Can you pay for a second opinion?

My daughter has had them done twice due to some complications but hasn't had that on either. That doesn't look normal, get your GP to push and ask for a second opinion.

I know! I've been phoning all the time but the secretary just passes messages between us. They told me to go to the gp if I thought that they were infected which I did last week. GP couldn't see anything because of debris but gave me the drops just incase. This was a week after they were suctioned during the op! Follow up appointment is a hearing test 2-3 months after the op even though her issues have been about reoccurring infection rather than hearing.
Her fever got up to 38.3 before I started calpol as she has convulsions so I don't like to leave her. I'm so sick of this, I had hope that this op might put an end to the issues but we are back to square one.

Oh that's really awful. I freakin hate some of these departments sometimes. Have you got medical insurance? Or can you pay for a private ENT specialist to see her? How old is she? FWIW our son had lots of issues ENT wise when younger and got loads of ear infections, had the worst sleep apnoea and got febrile convulsions. Crucially he also wasn't talking. It was very distressing and I would lay awake every night worrying about him. They only do grommets when they are very young and DS had first grommets inserted. Then grommets were causing more infections, so he had adenoidectomy, remove one grommet and reset the other. Still no joy. Finally age 4 when less risk of bleed, we paid privately for tonsillectomy (NHS was useless and I shouldn't have bothered with them in the first place). Suddenly he could breath at night and he started talking shortly afterwards. Miracle. But in meantime, your daughter needs to be seen pronto by whatever means. An infection so shortly after the op is not ok.

I do have private insurance but she was only added at the beginning of this year. She had been referred to the paediatrician before that so bupa would not treat her on the policy. I will contact them again how much a consultation is separately.
She is 21 months now. The ENT consultant was so sure that this was the root cause of her illness. She has had bloods done three times now but they have all come back normal.

Ds has had grommets 3 times.
The first time I think he was brewing an ear infection when he had it done (well he had one roughly every 10 days, so likely anyway) and his temperature came up quite quickly and we were given antibiotics. He then started being very sick and was rushed to hospital. Probably that was nothing to do with the operation-except possibly he caught it in the hospital! However the GP when I spoke to him wanted to blue light him even though I only live 10 minutes from hospital.

ENT have always said if there's an issue then get straight back in, as infection with grommets in can be worse (I think).

Can you ask for the consultant to phone you? Ours will and then decide if he needs to see. Or will the GP set it up-ours can be very persistent and will phone/email personally saying that you need to be seen asap.

What I suspect it may be is that the glue is coming out from the inner ear through the grommet (like if the ear drum has burst). Not pleasant, but not a major problem. Except you say the temperature is up, so there's obviously an infection there, so probably needs antibiotics really.

For ds (other than the first blip that first time) grommets have been wonderful. he had infections constantly from 10 weeks until grommets in at 20 weeks. Unfortunately he's 10yo and still as glue ear, but he doesn't get infections as much. However the hearing is effected over the winter so they've got to decide whether to do a 4th set of grommets shortly.

That was 20 months for his first set of grommets not 20 weeks.

Go back to your GP so that a medic can take another look; take swabs / treat with antibiotics if required... discuss with GP all your fears and what you should do if anything changes over weekend; if no appointments say 'it is urgent for today ' and hope that GP or PN will ring you .... at that point the gp/ pn will see you or arrange ongoing care.they will have several pathways for contacting an ent specialist for you.