Grommet advice

[sarahbcmc]

Have any of your kids had grommets fitted?. My older boy (7 years old) is having them in January and any shared experiences would be great.

I'm 90% excited beause his hearing has got sooo bad, but 10% anxious as he's never had general anesthetic yet

Thanks!

[angie wags]

Are you talking about tubes in his ears for fluid, Sarah?

[esther_a]

Not me, but my neighbor's daughter (and my youngest DD's best friend) did. Before that she was endlessly sick with ear infections and on antibiotics, which is NOT good! After the grommets were installed there was not a problem as far as I recall, except she had to wear ear plugs when swimming. Grommets are quite common here.

[sarahbcmc]

Originally Posted by angie wags

Are you talking about tubes in his ears for fluid, Sarah?

Yep! Zack has had 'glue ear' for ages now and it is bad enough for either a hearing aid or these gommets (sometimes called ventilation tubes, I beleive)

[quilter422]

my niece had them put in. she had essentially back-to-back earaches and antibiotics for nearly 2 years. it was worse on my sis than on my niece. the niece was feeling great an hour after the surgery. and only had an earache every 18 months thereafter.

[annaaspnes]

England calls them Grommets. US calls them Tubes.
Neither of mine have had them but it appears to be common.

[maureenreynolds]

My middle son had them for quite some time till they came out naturally. Ditto my eldest grandchild...the commonality is that they were/are serious swimmers.

[angie wags]

My kids haven't had them, but many nieces and nephews have. They've been very successful.

[Lynn Grieveson]

Maddie had grommets Sarah. She had them when she was 3 (which is actually quite late for here - 7 is very late). Hers have both fallen out now and she doesn't seem to need them replaced.

We saw a huge improvement in her almost immediately after they were put in. I would definitely do it again in the same situation.

The only problem we struck was that the second one did not simply fall out - it got stuck halfway out then caused a nasty infection. But with ear drops and antibiotics it fell out after a couple of weeks.

Getting them put in was really easy. She was up and literally dancing around the recovery room within ten minutes of coming out of surgery. She seemed not even to be aware that there was anything done to her! (Although after our nightmare experience after her next op, I understand your worry about a general .. ). It's scary I know.

[Scrapbird]

Wow, it's been a long time - the kid is 25 now! But our Matt had them put in after he had one ear infection after another. It totally helped! One fell out on its own, and we had to have the other one removed when he was four.