Am I the only mother of a son who has a hearing problem from having frequent ear infections?

Deanna - posted on 01/02/2010

Quoting Andrea:

My son had ear infections from 6 months old and was ona n antibiotic almost continuously till he was 2, he had the tubes put in and it made a worlsd of difference. The audiologist said that the build up of fluid in their ears is like hearing under water. His speech was seriously delayed but he is almost four now and you would never know. We were lucky and there was no permanant damage. I highly reccomend going to see an ear nose and throat specialist and having his hearing imapirment tested. Even if they dont have an ear infection the fluid can still be built up behind their ears and this is what causes the hearing impairment and speech delay.

We had the doctor look and he said there was no fluid in his ears and recently he still has not had any fluid in his ears (we had a doctor look at his ears last year) but there are times I do wonder. The teachers here where we live at, said that we have to pay for a speech therapist unless we qualify for Medicaid which we are but have not gotten the kids cards for the medicaid and we're still waiting on them.

We're waiting on the medicaid cards to come in but no word just yet and once this happens we'll be setting up appointments left and right and get our kids updated on everything.

I was furious when the doctors told us this, to wait and see because it would have been an unnecessary surgery, which I could understand on our part, but to have the previous doctors to tells us he has ear infections and there's no other options which we sought a second opinion.

Andrea - posted on 01/01/2010

My son had ear infections from 6 months old and was ona n antibiotic almost continuously till he was 2, he had the tubes put in and it made a worlsd of difference. The audiologist said that the build up of fluid in their ears is like hearing under water. His speech was seriously delayed but he is almost four now and you would never know. We were lucky and there was no permanant damage. I highly reccomend going to see an ear nose and throat specialist and having his hearing imapirment tested. Even if they dont have an ear infection the fluid can still be built up behind their ears and this is what causes the hearing impairment and speech delay.

Jackie - posted on 01/01/2010

You NEED to get him into an ENT even if the infections have stopped. I had the same situation and my sons ears were congested. He has had his tubes for 7 months now. His speech has impoved more in that time then the 3 years in speech therapy. The therapy wasn't as waste because we have used it to rapidly improve his speech now. But you definately need to make sure that tubes aren't needed. The longer you wait the harder the speech delay is going to be to fix. My son had hearing tested post op and his hearing is better the average even tho he had hearing lose before the operation. Demand that the doctor sends you to a specialist.

Lindsay - posted on 01/01/2010

My son had speech problems due to fluid on his ear drums. He never really got infections though. He got his tubes placed last December and has been thriving ever since with the help of his speech therapist!