Recurring bouts of glue ear

Hannah suffered recurring bouts of glue ear from the age of three to 12. Ongoing problems caused by the glue ear still affect Hannah, now 18 and at university.

Hannah's mother tells her story.

We first realised that Hannah had glue ear when she was about three. We were very quickly referred by our GP to Guy's Hospital, where we have been visiting at varying intervals ever since. Hannah had her first set of grommets at four and a half, and again at about eight and a half. Grommets worked in short term very well, but the glue ear returned quite quickly both times.

The glue ear, which continued to return until Hannah was in her early teens, has left her with a residue of complications. The hearing loss caused by the glue ear caused other problems, such as poor attention and a feeling of isolation. Her ears are constantly popping, her hearing goes down sharply at times (sometimes linked to colds), and she has intermittent ringing in her ears. She also finds flying very painful, particularly short, sharp descents, and holidays can be hard for her as it often takes days to recover.

Although her hearing now tests okay on the whole, Guy's says there is nothing to be done about the other symptoms, which are the result of permanent damage caused by the glue ear. She will always have painful ears, intermittent hearing loss and other problems arising from the ongoing glue ear.

This affects my daughter's life, and although she's really good about it, I find it hard to accept, particularly as there seems to be no solution.

Looking back

More information from the hospital would have helped us, and the clinic at that time was not particularly child-friendly. However things might have moved on since then.

Very importantly, we were not given any advice on the potential long-term effects of grommets. Hannah now has a scarring of the eardrums, which means she will always have problems. At the time, around 1990, there were news stories about possible damage, but our ENT consultant at the time said that there was no evidence of this, and that the stories were as the result of misinterpretation of a paper he had written.

In fact, we would almost certainly have gone with the grommets anyway, as it would have been a choice between potential long term damage and short-term deafness at a critical period for a growing child. However, the point is that we were not given the opportunity to make an informed choice. Grommets are very invasive for small children and we resisted a second set as long as possible.

Hannah's hearing really started to improve when she was about 14, and her latest hearing test this week was rated excellent. However, she still has pain, popping ears and periodic poor hearing. Guy's are arranging a 'speech discrimination' test, as I gather the thinking is that she may have got so used to not hearing low frequencies that she has switched off, and may need to be taught strategies for coping.

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