The Ear And Eye Issues

We had noticed that Dominick didn't always respond when we called his name and didn't always react to noise, some days we said he's not hearing and others we would say I don't know he seems fine. We decided to have his hearing tested and setup an appointment with a pediatric ENT. Dominick had never had an ear infection or anything else that caused us to be too alarmed but other people noticed the inconsistency in his hearing and there is a family history of deafness and hearing trouble. We took him to the doctor on June 1st and they took a medical history and started the ENT check to be sure everything was structurally correct. The left ear was fine and all looked ok, but his right ear was clogged with wax. They had to clean it out before they could see the eardrum. They used a vacuum to be sure they got everything and then found an infection and fluid behind the eardrum. It figures the only infection the kid gets is when he is supposed to have his hearing test, lol. So he was put on antibiotics and drops for his ear for ten days. We rescheduled his test for the 15th of June. He was brought in and checked and the ear was clear so we could go ahead with the testing. The audiologist put us in the soundproof booth and he sat on my lap. They performed different types of tests and he was found to be hearing in the normal range. Then they performed the tympanogram and found that although it could not be seen by the eye, there was a small amount of fluid behind the eardrum still. We left knowing that our little boy could hear us and that he was probably clogged up and that would take care of it. We were told to follow it with our regular pediatrician. On the 4th of July weekend he started screaming again and pulling at his ears, of course it was a holiday so we had to wait till Tuesday. We took him in and his ear was once again full of wax, and because they couldn't see the eardrum clearly they started antibiotics and the drops to help dissolve the wax. We used the drops for the seven days and the antibiotics for nine days and he was still screaming. We had to get him back to the pediatric ENT's office and have it vacuumed out again, but at least there was no infection. We were told his ear canals are very tiny and he may end up having to go in every three months to have them cleaned. Maybe this would explain explained the hearing inconsistencies. When full of wax he hears like he is under water and that could also explain some of his speech delays. If you don't hear it right you don't learn to say it right. Ok so as far as ear problems go this is pretty minor I guess.

Now if you remember Dominick's eyes were checked at 5 months and he was found to be farsighted and unless we saw a problem didn't have to go back until he was a year old. Well we started noticing that his right eye was turning in and over the course of a few weeks it got worse very quickly. We noticed that his left eye was starting to turn and I called and made an appointment to have him checked again early. The doctor checked his vision and found that his farsightedness had gotten much worse over the past 5 months and that his eyes were over compensating when he tried to focus on things that were close and things that were far away, this was causing the turning in. It is called Esotropia Accommodative. The doctor said he was not seeing much of anything very clearly. I felt so bad for him. My poor baby what else could go wrong. He would need to be fitted with glasses and seen again in three months. We took him to the optician and she showed us these little tiny frames made by Fisher Price. They were so cute but so sad at the same time. She tried them on him and he was just the cutest looking thing you ever saw. Once they were on he didn't really bother with them, he did spent quite a bit of time looking in the mirror at himself, lol. We decided on those and the bronze color and ordered a pair for Dominick. Funny thing about these little tiny glasses, they come with a huge price tag. We paid 300.00 dollars for his frames and lenses; I certainly hope insurance covers at least one pair. The optician said that it was not uncommon for their prescription to be changed at the three-month check, but at least we would be able to reuse the frames at that point still. I wonder how fast he will grow out of frames in the next few years? When he goes for his three-month check they will determine if the prescription is providing the right correction to completely take care of the overcompensation, if not we will change it and wait again. If we can find a prescription that completely resolves the problem then we ill be set and probably have some eye therapy later on. If we cannot completely correct the eyesight with glasses he may have to have surgery, but I will exhaust every possibility first. So we are now waiting for Band #3 and a new pair of glasses.

Comments

[Scott]

Carol, I Love it, I hope it can show alot of Moms, that You really can make a difference when You try!!!!