Hearing in 2yo

[Cakeweek]

2yo DS has had recurrent ear infections since lockdown #1. They present with high temperature, green discharge and he presses on his ears with the heels of his hands. We treat with antibiotics, calpol, nurofen. He has a vaporiser in his room at the first sign of a cold. No one has any idea why he gets them and advice is just to ride it out - paeds at our old local hospital was closed and turned into covid wards and the waitlist at the hospital it was moved to was crazy - we're still on it 12 months later and despite offering to take a cancellation, nothing. But that's no one's fault I guess.

However he now doesn't respond to quiet noises, if you talk behind him or if there's too much background noise. I spoke to our new HV and she's referring him for a hearing test.

But I'm not sure what to expect from the test itself and what the results may mean - can recurrent ear infections cause a hearing loss? Would it be permanent?

Any advice, handholds or guidance would be great please. Thanks

DS had similar (he’s now 5), lots of gungy ears though it didn’t seem to bother him too much. Eventually referred for a hearing test (he sat at a computer screen with headphones and had to press a button every time he heard a noise which made a picture of a cartoon character pop up), they diagnosed a perforated ear drum and moderate hearing loss on one side, went back a few (3? 6?) months later to see if it had healed which it hadn’t, so sent to consultant who said that it wasn’t worth operating while he was so small as it might just go again as he grows.

He now has to wear a ear plug for swimming and sits at the front at school, but he’s also visually impaired so would be sitting there anyway!

The test is really straight forward and ds always enjoys it, pretty certain he thinks he’s doing important work like mummy at the computer!

My son went for a hearing test at age 2. They sat me in a sound booth with him, while the audiologist and assistant were next door watching through a window, which kept him fairly at ease.
They played a few games with him - for example when he heard the “beep” he had to press a button and they would show him a super hero/Disney character on the screen as his reward. They were watching him closely so they knew if he was faking! They tried him with some headphones but he was having none of it! The games had told them what they needed to know, however.

DD had this - glue ear, constantly gunky ears which dropped down and would give her a rash down her neck and conjunctivitis, and hearing loss. The best thing was ear drop antibiotics rather than oral, or testing the gunk to see which antibiotics it would respond to. In the end she had grommets, and wore moulded ear plugs in the shower and swimming for years. She had yellow teeth for ages because she had so many antibiotics. And she had to have one eardrum repaired because it didn't heal after the grommets fell out - but no permanent hearing loss now.