swimming tips for child with ruptured eardrum? - Children's Health Message Board

moonflowerbagel · 05-24-2005, 04:27 PM

my son (4 years old) has a ruptured eardrum which will not grow back. he can have an operation when he's older (when he stops growing) but in the meantime we are looking for advice from others who've had kids with ruptured eardrums. in particular, we want him to be able to swim and are looking for ideas about how to keep the water out (we've heard that even the specially fitted earplugs are not very effective).
thanks!

crisma · 05-24-2005, 08:28 PM

You might try silly putty. It worked great for us.

moonflowerbagel · 05-25-2005, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crisma

You might try silly putty. It worked great for us.

Really! Fantastic idea! Did your child (I assume) ever have the operation to repair the perforation? I have the feeling they do it much earlier in the US than here (we live in Holland, they told us not until he's 13 or 14).

southjerseymom · 05-25-2005, 06:51 PM

Well, I don't know if you should use silly putty, but there is a special ear putty that you can get. I used that on my daughter when she had ear tubes. I got it from her ENT. He recommended it over the ear plug. My brother-in-law has a ruptered ear drum and he had a specially made ear plug made. He always seems to have trouble with it. I don't think it keeps water out as well as the ear putty, but it could be that his wasn't fitted well(don't know for sure).

crisma · 05-25-2005, 10:42 PM

My oldest son used to have ear infections all the time and had to have tubes in his ears. But my cousin's son had to have a patch sewn on his ear drum, and both my son's doctor and the cousin's doctor recommended the silly putty. It is not harmful at all and forms to the ear canal perfectly. It really did work great. My cousin's son had the surgery to fix his eardrum when he was 6. I don't know if the surgery your child is having is the same thing, but once my cousins son had the surgery his ear was fine. That has been a few years ago and he has had no problems. Good luck!