Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Found the culprit!

It's wax.  (Good guess, Leah!)  I took him to the pediatrician this afternoon.  No infection anywhere, just a big ol' gob of nasty wax plugging up his left ear.  Big enough that it was pressing against his inner ear and causing pain.  So we had our first experience with Debrox drops tonight.  If my childhood is anything to go by, it won't be our last.  (I was a waxy kid.)  He didn't like them, to put it mildly.  We're supposed to put them in twice a day for the next 4-5 days.  Gonna be a long 4-5 days.

Usually, when we're getting ready for bathtime, we take off his CI first (he can't really get undressed with it on) but leave the hearing aid in until just before he hits the water.  In a quiet home environment he can hear us pretty well with just the aid, and this greatly facilitates the rest of bath preparation.  Tonight, of course, he didn't have the aid in, and silly me I forgot this.  And proceeded to get quite angry with him for "not listening" as we finished getting undressed.  Granted he was overtired (after being up late last night for fireworks, and -- as usual -- no nap this afternoon) and acting out a bit, but you can imagine the Mom Guilt that set in when I realized my error.

5 comments:

leah said...

Score one for the mom with a waxy (and fluid-y) kid! I'm glad it is getting fixed - the debrox drops are better than going to the ENT for a clean-out. THat requires a papoose board and is NO fun at all (we can't use debrox with the tubes in place).

Nolan's working with one ear right now and it is surprising how much less he hears when he only has one aid in. Essentially, he is deaf in one ear (well, 65dB, but that's below the speech banana unaided) and the aid gets him to a decent level in the other ear... but he misses SO much more with only one aid. We've never really gone a long period of time with only one sided hearing - I got a bit frustrated with him for repeating the same question 8,000 times. I felt bad when I realized he simply wasn't hearing the answer!

rouchi6 said...

Good thing, he has just ear wax! Am sure it was a huge relief.Its always nice to check their ear wax from time to time.I normally take an ear bud and put some mustard oil and just wipe it in the ear canal,keeps all the ear wax, dryness and infections away.And yes, ask me about hearing with one HA,Prisha was with one the whole of 2009 and it was such a struggle.

krlr said...

I know that mommy guilt well - especially when you snap at the whining and discover a fever when walking them off to a time out. Hypothetically, of course.

Elsie Hickey Wilson said...

Oh, yes....ear wax...I remember it well...lets just say you had gobs of it! ...your loving MOM!
Mommy quilt: if it isn't about one thing it is about another! Comes with the territory! I can travel miles on my MOMMY Guilt trips!
But, they do survive, grow up to be marvelous adults, amazingly so!
Mommy Guilt..been there, done that!LOL!
Glad you found out about the wax stuff and hope the horrible, terrible, bad eardrops does the trick. Grammy sends a hug!
Your loving MOM!

Bobby Winters said...

This might be a case of TMI, but I've had that as an adult (read: Old Man). Having it removed is quite a relief.