Ear Tubes

gotoneson wrote: HI Everyone,

My son is getting ear tubes on Tuesday morning (bilateral myringotomy and tubes, or BMT). Has anyone else's kids gone through this? What can I expect? How about recovery?

GotOneSon

lisar replied: My DD has had tubes put in multiple times. She is now 6 years old and had a set of permenant tubes installed 9 months ago. Her first set was when she was 13 months old. The surgery last about 15 minutes total. He will be away from you for about 30 to 45 total. The recovery was fine. Tylenol for any pain but Lexi did really good. You will see a huge diffrence in your child after words. My fav part was when she heard something she had never heard before like the wind blowing she could always feel it but never could hear it. It was amazing to her to be able better.

Lots of luck

amynicole21 replied: My youngest has them now. The procedure was really easy, though she was cranky when she first woke up. Like Lisa said, it's over in 30-45min - and that includes prep and post-op snuggling. Easy-peasey

Mommy2Isabella replied: The Dr. has talked about them for Bella, as she seems to always have an ear infection. I am really nervous about it.

They said if she gets another ear infection then she will be getting them put in !! It will just be one more thing to add to the book I suppose.

gotoneson replied: Hi--

The surgery is scheduled for 7am, and I wanted to know what to expect for the rest of the day and the day after. I imagine my son will be cranky and out of it when he first wakes up, but how long before I should expect to see him back to normal?

GotOneSon

lisar replied:
A couple hours. Once the anesthesia (sp?) wears off he will back to normal. Lexi was always up playing and want to run around. Like she would every other normal day.

amynicole21 replied: Yep. Nora actually took her first steps just hours after the surgery. There was no stopping her

Boo&BugsMom replied: I had a friend who went to see a chiropractor about her son's chronic ear infections. He hasn't had one since. I thought that was interesting though. If I ever had to deal with that, it is something I would like to look into.

My cousins little boy had them put in recently. Like amynicole said, easy peasy. In and out and it barely fazed him. He was running around later that evening outside.

A&A'smommy replied: We had them done exactly a year ago this month... it wasn't bad at all, the worst part is coming out of the anesthesia its a little scary but once you start to notice the change in everything its all worth it!!! Its really quick, once you get home just let him do what he wants.. alyssa slept for 3.5 hours afterwards and when she woke up she was her happy little self again. My brother it didn't take him long at all.. pretty much right after leaving the hospital he was his normal self and wanted a hambuger

MyBrownEyedBoy replied: I had them at 18 months and haven't had an ear infection since. I'll be 31 next Friday. FWIW, my mom actually put one in my baby book after it fell out. LOL.

gotoneson replied: Thanks for all those helpful, encouraging responses.

I think it is a riot that someone has ear tubes in a baby book! Hilarious! If I find them when my they fall out of my son's ears, I will do the same thing.

Hope it goes as well for my son as it did for all of you. Hope that Tuesday afternoon I will be posting to say I worried for nothing...

GotOne(pre-op)Son

Jackie012007 replied: I'm going through this now, I'm glad someone asked. I'm 23 and when they take out my tonsils they are going to take skin from behind my knee and put it over a hole in my eardrum and put tubes in my ears I'm scared But the info helped!

gotoneson replied: Good luck with that! When are you having this done?

Jackie012007 replied: I'm still waiting for the Otolaryngologist to get back to me with a date for a consultation Hopefully soon though!

gotoneson replied: TODAY IS THE BIG DAY.
Wish us luck...we are off to the doctor at 6 this morning...hopefully we will be home by 9...
GotOneSon

lisar replied: Good luck and KUP....

Bouncing3 replied: Just reading your thread now. My daughter had tubes put in her ears at 2 years old. She was REALLY cranky while trying to come out of the anesthesia in the recovery room, she took a nice long nap when we got home, and there was no looking back since then! She is 11 years old now and has not had an ear infection since!

I hope that your little guy got through everything okay, and is by now, back to his cute little normal self.

ladybug13 replied: My DS had tubes placed when he was 13mo. It was well worth it as he was such a happy camper afterwards because of no more infection. The surgery itself was probably harder on me and dh. The hardest part was seeing him get really drowsy and floppy as they were putting him out. It was so weird to see him so out of it. They allowed me to come into the OR and hold him while they were putting him out. The whole procedure took maybe 15 minutes. He was super grumpy and confused when he "came to" and it took about an hour to get him settled down and asleep. He was then super sleepy the rest of the day.

Good luck! I know it's hard to think of our little ones having surgery but it's well worth it for them to be comfortable and not have to deal with the horrible infections anymore.

gotoneson replied: Hi Everyone,

The surgery went very well. It was definitely harder on me and DH than on DS. After he received an oral sedative, he settled right down (poor kid likes breakfast as soon as he wakes up, and he was cranky from being hungry). We handed him to the surgeon, who was already in his scrubs, and my drowsy boy looked at him, smiled, pointed, and said "hat" and fell asleep on the surgeon's shoulder.

When DS woke up in recovery, he cried for about a miunte and then said, "Milk? Milk, please!" He drank some juice, had a painkiller, watched cartoons, slept for three hours at home, and then he was running around like a little wild animal by the afternoon.

DS has also spoken a bunch of new words in the few days since the surgery. I think his hearing was compromised more than any of us realized from all the fluid trapped in his ears. I'm really looking forward to the first time DS has a cold that does NOT turn into an ear infection. That will be new for us!

Thanks for your stories and words of encouragement. It was all very helpful.

GotOneSon

amynicole21 replied: So glad it all went well!