Temporary hearing loss Grommets or Hearing Aid.

[Madreb]

Hi, long time lurker -I have posted in the past but unsuccessfully so I'm really hoping to get some responses this time.

DS who is 6 has always been under review for hearing as he has always been just a slight concern therefore worth monitoring.

However recently we noticed a huge deterioration. Got a check up with paediatric audiology and they confirmed that due to congestion he has moderate hearing loss.
I was given 3 options.

1. Wait and see (we can't he is really struggling to hear)
2. Temporary Hearing aids - stay monitored by paediatric audiology.
3. Be reffered to ENT (6-7 months)

I was expecting him to need grommets as I did when younger and that be that so I wasn't ready for a decision making process.

We can't have 2&3 combined as apparantly ENT will see him as being managed.

I'm inclined to just get him hearing again with the aids, but has anyone experience of how 'temporary' they would be?
Should we be patient and wait for ENT?

🤞🏻🤞🏻 for any experience/advice

What a difficult decision they've landed you with, if you have the energy I'd argue with them / PALS that it shouldn't be a choice and you should be allowed to do both. How is he feeling in himself, does he seem more isolated at school, or any behaviour changes at all? Is he usually more gluey in the winter and things might improve once cold season is over? If the change is affecting him, I would go for the hearing aids as once that social and learning gap starts to open up, it's difficult to change. However, if he's ok in himself, and the congestion has varied before, hang on for the ENT, keep ringing up and ask for cancellations, make sure school are deaf aware. NDCS are good source of advice.

Nice guidelines for surgery glue earthis might help, suggests if lasting more than 3 months and over a certain level of loss, good candidate for surgery.

My daughter used to suffer from intermittent hearing loss and occasional tonsillitis when she was in Year 4. She used to say it felt like there was a bubble in her ear. We saw a specialist who said she'd grow out of it but offered us a choice of a hearing aid or grommets. I asked him what he would chose if she was his daughter and he didn't hesitate, he'd choose the hearing aid.
We chose the hearing aid and within about eighteen months, she had no more ear problems.

Ds asked for hearing aid instead of his third lot of grommets, but was told that he needed grommets as (if I remember rightly) his ear drum was bulging. He had very bad glue ear, and constant infections, and grommets did help ease that.

He was quite keen to try the hearing aid, but he did have a friend who had one, which may have altered his perception.

Ds is waiting for his 3rd set of grommets. His hearing loss is affecting his daily life but we were advised against hearing aids, despite him being keen!

We were told it can cause increased risk of eat infections and some children can find it overwhelming to suddenly hear every little thing in the classroom!

This was similar to the conversation I had with the audiology specialist, and is really reassuring thank you!

Oh really, the specialist advised the aids I was just unsure if there was 'temporary' aids as such. Did you dcs grommets fall out?

He has been fine in himself, maybe grumpier than usual, he is very bright and confident so i'm hoping we have caught it quick enough to prevent too much of an impact!

@Madreb they came out the first time as they should but the hearing got bad again because the glue ear did not resolve itself.

Second time round they came out again but he still has hearing loss and retracted ear drums.

We're hoping the third set may help! Although we've been waiting 7 months since signing the bloody operation paperwork and still have no date.

My daughter had hearing aids from the age of 3-6 (she probably needed them for another year but lockdown meant that our appointments were cancelled and so was unable to get new moulds and so they didn't fit her properly). We had to decided between grommets and hearing aids too. For us we definitely made the right choice. And thankfully she has never had an ear infection. She is nearly 9 now and hearing is so much better. It dips slightly in winter but not back to the low levels it was.
It was amazing watching her use her hearing aids for the first time and see her realise what she had been unable to hear... I always get emotional thinking about it.

@Cric
Reading this makes me think I should have ignored the advice and insisted on hearing aids instead! Especially as he'll end up with them anyway if the third set of grommets fail 😫

Can you afford to go privately and go straight for grommets?

@Pinkflipflop85 fingers crossed the next set will do the job really well and make all the difference

We went with grommets for DC3 aged 3, key reasons for going for them were a strong suspicion getting him to wear hearing aids would be a battle and a half, several ear infections, significant speech delay, and that he had enlarged adenoids that would be removed st the same time. The hope is that without the adenoids the glue ear won't come back.

DC2 aged 6 is now struggling with her hearing which I suspect is glue ear, still waiting for a GP appointment to start the wheels moving. In her case, I'd lean towards hearing aids as none of the above apply. If you start getting issues with ear infections, I'm assuming you'd be able to push for a referral for ENT again. I've seen this recommended on glue ear Facebook groups as worth a try with DC old enough to use it www.otovent.co.uk/buy-otovent/otovent/ . Has it been suggested at all for you?

At one point in our journey they had some concerns (I can't remember what it was for the life of me now) and so we were under audiology and ENT at the same time