Early assessment necessary

Peter Woolley's son, Barnaby, had glue ear last winter.

Here is Peter's story.

"We first noticed Barnaby, now nearly two, had glue ear in December 2003. We initially visited our GP in January after the holidays and Barnaby was put on various antibiotics over a seven week period, but these did not clear the glue ear up.

"Barnaby's main symptoms were that his ears were hurting, he had increased earwax and the GP said that his ear drums were red and inflamed.

"While the glue ear eventually cleared up on its own, I would encourage parents to visit their GP as soon as they suspect something is wrong.

"One of Barnaby's cousins has had glue ear and grommets, so after Barnaby had a cold, we were aware of the possibility of glue ear, and we had him checked out in case he had the same thing.

"If parents can be made aware of glue ear, particularly that it is a seasonal problem, the sooner they can visit their GP and have it seen to."

Early assessment

Leading UK glue ear researcher Mark Haggard says that a comprehensive early assessment with a view to possible treatment is necessary, to ensure that children don't suffer unnecessarily from glue ear. If left untreated, glue ear can adversely affect development, behaviour and learning.

"People tend to think of short-term ear infections (for which antibiotics may be prescribed under some circumstances), and the invisible hearing loss of glue ear (where antibiotics don't work) as separate things. These are different diagnoses, so to some extent they can be separate in time or in different children's pattern of disease."

"However, in some recent work, supported by Deafness Research UK, we have found that the largest impact in terms of behaviour problems is seen in the children with a history of both, as Barnaby appears to have had. This shows that if one condition is diagnosed, checking whether the other condition is also present is necessary. This allows us to expect and understand problems the child may have at a later time."

. . . . . . . . . .