ENT issues

[BarryTheKestrel]

DD (3.5) has a doctor's appointment on Friday as a follow up to a burst eardrum a few weeks ago. The burst eardrum was caused by tonsillitis and an ear infection.

However, whilst I'm there getting her ear checked I want to discuss some other things I've noticed and just wondered if anyone else had any ideas what we could be dealing with.

DD breathes incredibly loudly, constantly. She snores loudly like an old man to the point where you can hear that she's asleep on a different floor of the house through closed doors and over the TV. At night it sounds like her breathing stops and restarts again.

Her tonsils often look huge and inflamed despite her never ever complaining of any pain, even when she had tonsillitis we didn't know about it as she never once mentioned any pain or issue.

Her breath always smells funny, even if she's just brushed her teeth. It's a sort of earthy sandy smell, maybe even a little fishy at times.

DH has his adenoids out at a young age and is currently awaiting an operation on his nose due to his nostrils almost totally being covered with cartilage causing him breathing issues.

Between the two of them I feel like I live with a crowd of snoring pigs at night and they both breathe like Darth Vader in the day, especially when focused on a film or something.

Anyone have any idea what I should be expecting from these symptoms or if there is anything I should be asking them to check that may otherwise be over looked?

Thank you!

My personal opinion is that you could actually be dealing with sleep apnea here. But the only way to make sure is to see the ENT. Hopefully you’ll get some much needed answers to your questions soon.

Take a notebook and pen with you to the appointment. Insist that they answer your questions. Have them explain any test results and recommend a plan of action. This is technically their area of experience and expertise.

DS1 (2.5) had exactly the same symptoms. Even when he was awake, he almost sounded like he was snoring. It was massively impacting his sleep which in turn was causing him to be over tired all the time and behaving very badly at home and to a lesser extent, at nursery.

We saw an ENT who quickly diagnosed ‘kissing tonsils’ (they were so big they almost met in the middle), glue ear and enlarged adenoids.

He explained that sometimes they will wait to see if the child grows out of these issues but there are two scenarios where they will recommend going straight to surgery: when it is causing sleep apnea and speech delay. DS was suffering from both of these (his speech is ok but he mispronounces a lot of words)

Because of this, yesterday he had grommets inserted, his adenoids removed and a 70% reduction of his tonsils using a laser (apparently this is now considered preferable to removing them completely)

After the op was finished the surgeon came to see us and said he was sure we had done the right thing. Apparently he spent three minutes on each ear just sucking out gluey crap and his adenoids were the size of walnuts. It explains so much about DS’s behaviour and development and health issues.

Last night DS was still snoring but considering it was less than 24 hours after surgery, the surgeon said this was due to swelling and was to be expected. But I can already say that the snoring sounded different - he sounded much more like a two year with a cold than an obese old man! Interestingly, his voice is also less deep (people always used to comment before on what a deep voice he had)

Hope this helps!

Sounds like she might have sleep apnoea. Request a referral for a sleep study. She might benefit from an adenotonsillectomy .

It might be worth filming her sleeping so you can show what you’re worried about to the ENT doctors.