Transcript:

Hey! I’m Dr. Lilach Saprestein and this is episode 14 of the All About Audiology Podcast- the All About YOU episode.

In this episode, I’ll share some of the responses that came in from last week’s episode which was all about ear infections and tubes. Our conversation with Dr. Hadassah Kupfer was really well-received and I’m so honored by the comments and responses you all sent in.

A friend of mine posted about the episode on a facebook community of moms and dads who seek evidence-based parenting advice. She said about the episode that it was a

“great episode about the SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE surrounding something that effects so many of our kids – ear infections.”She say, “I thought this was a balanced approach that explains what the doctors don’t have time to tell you.”

I so appreciate your support and sharing the podcast with other parents who could benefit from it. Thanks for being a friend to the show and a friend to me.

Sara said “Thank you for sharing this! This is a great source of information based on what I’ve heard from my audiologist and the many ENTs I’ve taken my daughter to. My daughter had tube surgery a month ago at 16 months old and the difference in her speech is already amazing! We were dealing with constant ear infections including a ruptured ear drum and so far, so good.”

Wow Sara, thanks for sharing your experience with us. For so many parents, the experience of a child’s behavior, hearing ability, and speech development show significant progress soon after getting tubes since they are no longer hearing underwater, through all that muck!

“This is Chava. My son Dovid had tubes put into his ears when he was 2 years old. He had several ear infections when he was young and he didn’t really start speaking until very late, or making any sounds. We kept going back and forth to the doctor, eventually to the ENT, who suggested we put tubes in his ears, after testing his hearing and seeing that he wasn’t hearing well. He had some hearing loss after all the ear infections and from constantly having fluid in his ears. And it was affecting his ability to speak and his ability to sleep at night. So we had the surgery. I was a little nervous about it before, but we had a great ENT surgeon and he really put us at ease, explained everything to us, and worked. He was really good with my son as well, put him at ease, easily distracted him- he just had great bedside manner, which helped a lot. In addition to that, in case this is of interest, a few months after he had the surgery, and he was still not sleeping well at night I was desperate (I had also a baby) and I was desperate to get some sleep at night and I actually went to see a sleep coach. Before starting the consultation, she asked me a whole bunch of questions, routine questions that she asks everybody and then she asked me about ear infections, and sleeping habits and if my son woke up often at night… She asked if we ever checked whether he had sleep apnea. It had never occurred to me, but sure enough, we started paying attention to his breathing at night. Actually, my husband sat next to him one whole night and recorded his breathing, just with a simple voice recording on his phone, and he really heard that his breathing stopped at one point, so he had a second surgery to remove his adenoids and that really helped. After that he slept well,