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Asked by anon-202659 to Hanna on 6 Mar 2019.
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Hanna Jeffery answered on 6 Mar 2019:
Grommets are used to treat ‘glue ear’.
-When I look inside someone’s ear, I am looking at their eardrum.
-Behind their eardrum are tiny bones which pass sounds to the inner ear. These bones sit inside a little cave in the skull, called the ‘middle ear’.
-The middle ear should be full of air. The air comes from inside your nose (your sinuses). When someone’s nose is blocked, sometimes the air can’t get into that middle ear cave, and liquid (like snot) gets in there instead. The little bones can’t move properly in that, so the person can’t hear properly. We call this ‘glue ear’.
-A grommet operation removes the liquid from the middle ear. The doctor then leaves a white plastic ring, called a grommet, in the eardrum. Having a hole in the eardrum lets air into the middle ear and the liquid dries up, so they can hear better.
-People with grommets need to keep their ears dry so that germs don’t get into their middle ear through the grommet. Grommets often fall out as the eardrum skin grows.
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Comments
Marie commented on :
Having large adenoids (like your tonsils at the back of your throat, but slightly further up) can cause glue ear, which can affect a child’s ability to hear and, therefore, to learn. Large tonsils and adenoids can also cause children (and adults) to have breathing problems – the person can seem to hold their breath for a long time when they are sleeping. Children who get large adenoids and/or tonsils, along with the glue ear, will often have gommets put in, and have their tonsils/adenoids talken out as an operation. This usually fixes the problem.