Are there any ENT Specialists or parents who have had children with Glue Ear on STW?
Advice or info please.

My son (2 year 2 months) has been diagnosed with glue ear.

The specialist we saw this morning has prescribed five different drugs. After reading the instructions of the drugs I am worried if I should give tham to him.
Lupidon -(treats stomach problems)
Xazal – antihistamine
Flixonase-Steroid nasal spray for allergies (4 years and over)
Niflactol- anti-inflammatory
Fluidin-?

NHS direct and Bupa health pages both say Glue Ear should not be treated with prescription drugs as there is little evidence they do any good and the side effects could be worse than the little they do.
Also my son has not shown any signs of allergic reactions to anything that we know of.

How have other children been treated with glue ear?
(Disclaimer, I know I should speak to another specialist and will be doing so.)

Thanks

Roper

I had glue ear as a child and had grommets fitted (many years ago)I’ve not heard of drug treatment,normaly they just wait a bit to see if it clears on its own up before surgery.Your entitled to a second opinion.As your not happy its what I’d do first.

My sister had glue ear as a child as well. She had grommets put in in an overnight hospital procedure, although I’m not sure about whether any drugs were tried before that.
I would suggest that if you have any doubts at all you don’t give him the prescriptions, but speak to the specialist again. It may be that this one is gung ho for such things – I went to see a specialist about my back who was gungho for an epidural treatment that would have done precisely nothing for my particular case.

My son was the longest serving patient of his ENT specialist – 15 years with glue ear – and this was exceptional.

I am happy to share our experience of this – my email is in my profile.

In my son’s case, it wasn’t just glue ear that he was affected by as is so often the case. It was the whole ENT thing.

Grommets are not used now. Not proven to be effective.

I don’t know some of those drugs and googling throws up some odd results.

We were told our son had it and would need grommets. By the time they got round to doing anything it had sorted itself out on its own.

What kind of ‘specialist’ did you see?

Was he an ENT consultant in the NHS, or an NHS paediatrician?

Couple of those drugs seem to be a bit obscure, why Niflactol rather than ibuprofen?

Thanks very much for the replies, they are food for thought.
cinnamon_girl YGM

It was a private Spanish ENT specialist in Gibraltar. There may be some differences with branding of the medication but treatment is normally quite universal.
I have no idea why Niflactol (suppository) was recommended rather than ibuprofen. He was not the most talkative person I’ve met. He did do other scans and checks and appeared quite thorough with those.

Because the the Auditory tube (It runs from the middle ear to the nasopharynx) is horizontal in children any buildup of mucous or fluid in the middle cannot drain out as well (in Adults and as children grow the Auditory tube is more on a vertical plain)and can then cause pressure to build up and cause earache so they fit grommets to ease the pressure and allow the infection to drain if antibiotics don’t do the trick.

Probably not much additional use but I had it as a kid and had surgery to clear it up. I don’t remember having grommets, it was 30ish years ago, and it meant that I wasn’t deaf any more. The fact that I had made it through a year or so of Primary education without them noticing that I was deaf was a source of slight embarrassment for my school.

According to my parents it was the best thing that ever happened to me, the surgery that is not the Glue ear.

On the side effects of drugs remember that they have to say what the side effects are no matter how common or rare they are so I would be inclined to treat them as a list of things to look out for/be aware of, rather than a list of things that are going to affect to you child.

roper – reply sent and hope you find it useful.

Roper – suppository rather than medicine so it does not cause stomach ulcers. Common practice in Furrin lands