Hearing Loss or ADHD? What a Choice!!!

A recent article chronicals the increase of ADHD by 24% in the past ten years. The cause??? Maybe environmental. Maybe genetic. Affects boys more than girls. Disturbing. But most disturbing to me was the sentence stating “one study pubished in Mayo Clinic Proceeings found that multiple exposures to anesthesia at a young age was liked to a higher rate of ADHD.”

Great. New justification for educated parents and pediatricians who hate ENTs under normal circumstances to stop putting tubes in the kid’s ears when they have fluid and hearing loss from that fluid. Wonderful. It has been documented the educational and speech outcomes of long term and short term hearing loss from fluid. So maybe a couple of children won’t develop ADHD (and this is only 1 study that makes that suggestsion) in favor of increasing the child’s probability of learning problems, language issues, speech abnomalities and increase possibility of developing meningitis. Really smart.

As you can tell, I am a serious proponent of tubes. My oldest son had them and I insisted that they be re-inserted when the first set fell out rather than fooling around with antibiotics. Zack was delayed in his speech development and I didn’t want him to lose any more time to hearing loss which would put him farther back. Eric never needed tubes. But that was because his ear drum would perforate on its own prior to the surgery and the fluid would stream out. Fortunately, it was only one ear at a time so his hearing continued to be normal on one side. He was delayed in ALL his shots because he always had fluid in one ear which I as a professional missed constantly.

So I beg you, continue inserting PE tubes and restore normal hearing to your children, even when the fluid is clear. It is the fluid that causes hearing loss, not infection.