To Get Ear Tubes or to Not Get Ear Tubes

wow I live in Deep Creek as well! We ar epractically neighbors! My name is J. and I have 2 girls-NAtalie 2 1/2 and Abigail 1. NAtlaie started getting ear infections at 8 months old and has had about 8-9 ear infecitons in the apst 2 years. She ahs been to ENT but only becasue on my mom's side of the family there is history of hearing loss so she ahs to get checked every so often. We go to pediatric Affiliates and they have never even mentioned tubes. I am so glad because, like your husband, I am leery of them. HOwever, I don't know why they have put your son on such strong medicines. NAtlaie ahd only been on Amoxicillan, Augmenten and Ceprozil. I have never heard of the other ones accept for Z tap and I didn't think they gave that to young children. I think you should wait personally. I think 7 months is way to young to ahve tubes. Also, just from NAtlaie having so many I have learned so much personally about ear infections. They are so trail and error. each ear infection is different becasue each one has a different bacteria. That is why the same mediaction does not always work for every ear infection. Also, if it is a viral ear infection there is no way they can know that unless they stick a needle or soemthing in their ear (which I have never had them do for NAtlaie). In that case or if you suspect that is what it might be, you can give them MOtrin at 12 months but I ma not sure about 7 months. I believe that NAltaie has had viral ear infections at least twice becasue it has taken so long for them to be gone. who is your pediatrician? They seem to offer strong medicines, especially for 7 months so I would be worried aboutt he strong medication yes, but I would alaso worry about tubes. I do know at least one patient in my daughters practice has had tubes but I believe she was around 3 when they put them in.

Wow, where do you live in Deep Creek? MAybe we can get together sometime? My e-mail is ____@____.com put From Mamasource in the subject so I won't delete it :).

J.

Please get the tubes! My son had to get them in, and we waited, and waited, and you are right, their speech will be impaired because they are not hearing all of the sounds in the words, we ended up doing it when our son was about a year and half, and it was a piece of cake, the hardest part, is when they take him from you to do the surgery, but it was so quick, by the time we went downstairs to get something to eat and bring it back up in the waiting area, before we were even done eating, the doctor came out and told us he was finished! They did tubes, and took out his adenoids all within 30 minutes. (I suggest Kings Daughter's in Norfolk). My son is now 2 1/2 and has yet to catch another ear infection, one has just now came out, and the other is on it's way out.
The only downfall, is that if it should happen again with the ear infections, he will have to get them put back in, but it's not as bad as you and your husband is thinking.

Good luck with your decision.

Alright, I just clicked respond without looking to see what others wrote first so forgive me if this is just repitition. I have had tubes twice and my middle brother has had them 3 times. I was once 75% deaf in my left ear and now I can hear a pin drop from the other side of the house practically. It took a long time for the ear infections to stop but my hearing did steadily improve. However, I was 5 years old the frst time I got them in. If it makes your husband feel any better, the surgery doesn't take long at all. The second time I got them in my parents said it felt like about 5 minutes so I'm guessing it was around 30 minutes tops. It does not hurt and the only recovery I needed was about 30minutes to an hour to get the anesthesia out of my system. ( It makes me a little ill when I wake up) After that you just need to keep the water out of the ears. I had to have wake ear plugs for baths and swimming. and when he's old enough, no jumping in the pool, it puts too much pressure on the ear drums and it will cause an ear infection. I had both kind of tubes as well, there are ones that the doctor has to pull out and the ones that fall out naturally but both of them are in for about 3 years. Well I dunnno if I helped you at all but that is my experience. It really only lessened the amount of ear infection. I still got them pretty frequently. But it did fix my hearing.

My only suggestion. GET THE TUBES. It will eventually cause hearing loss if you don't. The surgery only takes like 15 minutes and they don't put the that deep into sleep and you go home that same day. NO MORE EAR INFECTIONS.

K.,

I am so sorry to hear about all the ear infections. I have 5 children and must say that I would get the tubes as soon as you can in my opinion. My second child had several ear infections starting at just a few months old till 18 months old when he got the surgery. The last ear infections were so bad we went through 5 different meds back to back to get them cleared. I only wish that the doctors would have suggested tubes earlier for him, being that he had so many and at the stage where they do pick up on sounds and speach it did cause him to have speach problems and had therapy in K and 1st grade to help correct. The ear infections made it difficult for him to hear some sounds correctly. He ended up getting his tubes around 18 months and never had an ear infection after! It was amazing and as I said before, I only wish they had been suggested sooner to avoid the speach problems he had a few years later. Good luck and God Bless!