Re: Tympanoplasty ( ear graft / patch ) for child ??? Re: Tympanoplasty ( ear graft / patch ) for child ???
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Posted by
Donna on July 21, 2000 at 14:49:00:
In Reply to: Tympanoplasty ( ear graft / patch ) for child ??? posted by cazzz on January 05, 2000 at 07:52:04:
: Hi I have posted all over the net with not much luck !
: I am trying to find someone who has been here with this surgery as my 7 year old son needs this and i need to talk !
: He has tubes / grommets in both ears at age 2 then in his bad ear at age 4 .
: Now he has HUGE holes in both ears and is open to many bad infects !
: He has no hearing loss so far , as is the norm with holes in ear drums !
: The opperation scares me as of the bad cons to it !
: please if you or your child has been here talk with me !
: Thanks so much cazzz !
: icq is 3115579 !
My son just had his right (and second) tympanoplasty in 2 years. His surgery was on 7/19. (He had the left ear done in 99) He is 9 yrs old now and actually did remarkably well with these surgeries. Aside from the severe dizziness when he woke up, he is doing very well. With the dizziness comes some nausea. They gave him some strong antinausea medications and they seemed to have worked. His Dr. uses an ear graft and claims to have a 95% success rate. The hole that was in my son's left ear was very large. The Dr. thought there was still a small hole there and inspected it during the surgery this week. He said that he might be able to "brush up" the surrounding tissue and get it to regenerate and grow over to cover the remaining small hole. But upon inspection, he found that the hole will not heal on it's own and we will have to go through a third surgery next year. :(
I am hopeful that the right ear will heal with no problems because the hole was much smaller in that ear. Both of these holes were left by ear tubes put in at the age of 18 months. Prior to the ear tubes, his left ear ruptured 3 times. I suspect this is the reason why his left ear had such a large hole.
The actual healing process is lengthy. Our Dr. restricts physical exercise for a period of one month after surgery. In some cases, longer. This is not easy for a young boy. But he understands the importance of this and does his best to cooperate.
The actual incision area behind the ear will stay swollen for quite a while. But eventually my son's healed up nicely and the surgical site became harder and harder to see.
