If your child has tubes...

can you please tell me what made your decision to get them.

My son will be 9 months on the 23rd. Since Oct 17th, he has had 3 ear infections and constant fluid in his ears. His hearing loss is in the mild to borderline stage. ENT said that if he gets on more ear infection before he sees him again (in 6 weeks) that he would rec. tubes, but it is our decision.

We are going back to ped today bc he was crying all night, and cranky most of the day. He saw the ENT yesterday, and he def had fluid, but it wasn't an infection yet.

I am confused as to what to do if he gets another infection...tubes or not? I feel like he is young..I mostly read about tubes in 15-18month olds it seems

Re: If your child has tubes...

I would get them. They were a life saver!!! Why let him suffer ya know!! And with that hearing loss...that will delay his speech and you dont want it to become permanent.

So In my opinion..it was the best thing for my son...

Good luck!

Re: If your child has tubes...

i would get them --before he gets another one... ds was constantly getting ear infections. always had fluid in his ears.

its been 10 months since he had them put in and he hasn't gotten a ear infections since.

i wouldn't even wait for him to get another one. i would schedule it now.

Re: If your child has tubes...

I am very worried about the speech delay...he is babbling...saying mama, dada, baba, stuff like that, and hi, but I think he was saying all this before he got the first infection...

How long did the surgery take? I am going to discuss it with his ped today

Re: If your child has tubes...

DD had 9 ear infections in 5 months.

it did result in her ability to hear which then resulted her in being a late talker.

shes had tubes since she was 11 months old and she is now 2.5 and had fluid once in her ears.

i would get them, life saver for us

Re: If your child has tubes...

Re: If your child has tubes...

My doctor made us wait because my DS didn't have any hearing loss per the hearing test. My DS has a speech delay but its do to an unrelated issue. But after the 8th ear infection in a year I insisted that we needed to do something. The tubes were put in 2 weeks ago and immediately we saw a difference in the amount of talking he has been doing. They have also helped his balance as well. My DS is 2.5 and they are hesitant to do them earlier especially if reflux has been an issue. HTH's

Re: If your child has tubes...

Posted by Linda1003

I would get them. They were a life saver!!! Why let him suffer ya know!! And with that hearing loss...that will delay his speech and you dont want it to become permanent.

So In my opinion..it was the best thing for my son...

Good luck!

Message edited 12/13/2011 1:11:39 PM.

Re: If your child has tubes...

Both of my girls have tubes. The first one got them at 20 months, and DD #2 followed the same track as her sister with fluid that never drained and ear infection after ear infection. We decided not to wait as long with my 2nd daughter adn she got tubes in April at 9 months. It was the best thing we ever did.

Re: If your child has tubes...

DS got his tubes last month at 14 months old. He had a bunch of ear infections last winter...but for us the bigger problems were that when he had infections his eardrum would perforate or pop.. which could cause hearing loss. He also had fluid in his ears would not drain. He had fluid all summer.. borderline hearing tests, etc. He's an early talker and I was so worried about this affecting his speech.
Got his first ear infection of the season in September.. Our ENT said we couldnt wait anymore.

DS is in daycare and has had a cold for a few weeks now.. he would probably be on his second ear infection by now if we hadn't done the tubes.

Re: If your child has tubes...

I wanted them when she was BORN!

I have hearing issues, I had a feeling she’d have the same. Then by the time she was 15m old she was having ear infections every other month, if not monthly. She had 9 within a 12m period. The doc kept telling me to hold off until her 15m check up. I HATED the wait. Drove me crazy.

Finally at 15m a new doc saw her and she was pretty much against them too. But looked in her ears and saw a raging double infection and changed her tune.

She got them put in at 17m. She’s 3 now. One fell out on its own around 2.5yrs old. The other is mostly out but still in her ear drum. She has only had ONE ear infection since then. It was actually there when she had the procedure done, then just got worse afterwards.

Before tubes, she went through about 6 different kind of antibiotics. Her infections were always bad but her reactions were either mild or none at all to being miserable. Also she was a little late in speech which may or may not have been because she couldn’t hear. She failed hearing tests with the Audiologist when given, but passed after the tubes were put in.

Putting tubes in her ears was the BEST choice I have made and I am so very glad we finally got them done. My only regret was that we didn’t get them earlier.


ETA: Surgery took about 15min. They gave her a syringe full of Tylenol to relax her and something else and she was a lil woozy. They carried her out on a nurses’ shoulder. So cute. She waved bubye to me. My little trooper. She thought the whole thing was a blast, a new experience and she had all the attention! I have photos of her in her little gown with a blood pressure cuff and finger monitor!

As I said before she had a fever the night before but not the morning of. They came out to tell me that she had a really bad ear infection but they were going to suction it out as much as they could. So she woke up fine but later was NOT happy. 3 days of suffering before I took her back to be told the ear infection didn’t clear up and was still there. That was the last major ear infection she had. I think if she didn’t have one that morning her recovery would have been better.

Message edited 12/13/2011 3:36:28 PM.

Re: If your child has tubes...

DS had countless ear infections. He had tubes put in at 16 months and has had 1 ear infection since. He is 26 months. I hated giving him all those antibiotics.

Message edited 12/13/2011 4:22:03 PM.

Re: If your child has tubes...

DS had 8 infections and he's 16 months old. We had them done about a month ago. He was not walking, only had 2-3 words & was miserable every 2-3 weeks with ear infections.

We fly a lot & I was starting to get worried about his development. He was low on the hearing test but still ok. Because the risks & complications were so low and the benefits were so high we did it.