There is an old post about this, but I wanted to ask a specific question.

On occasions I have trouble popping my ears. I was consdering getting grommets installed in the ear drums to help equalise the pressure but I go through 4 pressurisation cycles a day and I understand they can quickly fall out.

Is there anybody who has tried them and if so how long did they stay in? Were they effective and if they did fall out could / did you get them re-inserted?

I don't really want to go down this route but it seems like a good solution.

Any experiences would be useful...

Interesting question, not heard of their use in pilots, only in children with glue ear.

Anecdote experience suggests that there use in children is near to useless, and it would appear that the evidence is now beginning to support this.

Anecdote experience suggests that there use in children is near to useless, and it would appear that the evidence is now beginning to support this.

Curious - not my experience at all!

My younger son had grommets installed at 3 (or 4, I can't remember) because of glue ear.

The results were dramatic - his hearing (and speech) improved enormously - literally overnight. He found it almost traumatic to go from a quite "isolated" auditory environment to coping with the full-on sounds of urban living in the 21st century!

That's my anecdotal evidence, anyway.

I have no idea about their use in adults, or with pressurisation cycles. Doubtless a GP or ENT specialist would have more to say!

SD

Fair enough comment, as ever in medicine, never say never, and never say always.

Perhaps I should have said that the benefits are unclear.

When we look at the scientific studies, the benefits of grommet insertion, do not always outweigh the risks. The big study was here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15674886&query_hl=1



Glad to hear that your son is ok though.

If your problem is caused by a chronically blocked Eustacian Tube then in theory a grommet would cure the problem overnight. There are a number of types of grommet on the market. There is at least one called a Permavent or something similar which is less likely to fall out. If you haven't already, you need to chat to an ENT specialist with an interest in aviation to get some good advice.

That said, grommets are easy to insert and replace as far as I can tell (from anaesthetising countless children for the procedure, it takes about 5-10 minutes per ear with a good surgeon and the punter wakes up pretty much pain free albeit things often sound a bit loud!)

Agree about risk / benefit - this was not the first option, rather the last, and considerable discussion / soul-searching went into the the decision to go ahead.

We are indeed fortunate that everything turned out uniformly for the best!

:ok: :)

Noisily,

SD

Here's some advice about glue ear:

http://www.washeswhiter.com/wwglueear.php