Advice After Grommet Surgery
HOW LONG DO GROMMETS LAST?
Grommets generally last between 6 and 18 months, with 12 months being the average. You may not necessarily know when they have fallen out. Any trained medical professional or specialist nurse should be able to check if they are still in place. If you have any concerns regarding your child’s hearing once the grommets have fallen out then please do not hesitate to contact us and arrange another appointment for repeat hearing assessment.
SWIMMING AND BATHING
ENT Surgeons often give varying advice regarding swimming and bathing after grommet insertion. A Cochrane review recently looked at the
question of whether children with grommets need to protect their ears with swimming. They found very little difference in chances ofinfection in those children that protect their ears when swimming and bathing and those who do not.
ENT Surrey suggests that children do not swim for the first week after surgery and only children who have suffered pain or infection when swimming use water precautions.
INFECTION
When a child has grommets, an infection will show itself as a runny ear discharge. It is rarely painful and usually does not present with a temperature.
Cochrane review looked at the best treatment for runny ears in children with grommets. They found that ear drops are nearly twice as effective as oral antibiotics in these cases. Eardrops have the added benefit of not causing side effects elsewhere in the body. If your child has an infection please ask your GP to prescribe eardrops not oral antibiotics.
CUSTOM SWIM PLUGS
If you would like your child to have custom made swim ear plugs, these can be purchased via our partners Gatwick Audiology. These are moulded to your child’s ear canals to provide an effective watertight seal and constructed from material that is easy to look after and keep clean.
