Ear tubes for grownups

I know a lot of kids who get frequent ear infections have tubes put in. I’ve never heard of adults getting them. What exactly are we talking about with grownups and “tubes”?

I’ve been seeing an ENT for a little while about trouble with my ears. The allergy medicine does help a lot, but my right ear still feels kind of “heavy” and “muffled”. I had a hearing test which showed my hearing to be “incredible”, so the muffled feeling is an illusion. I spoke to a nurse on the phone today who told me that in light of that, the doctor wanted me to stay on the same meds for a while and see if it got better, and if it didn’t we might put in a tube.

So, you put those in when fluid isn’t draining from the inner ear, right? Are they permanent? Do they affect hearing? Do they hurt? Is this an undesirable option? I’d just like some more information, in case it does come to that.

I have had tubes put in my ears twice now as an adult. It is an in office procedure. It’s really not that bad at all. They inject you with some Novocain, suction off the fluid behind your eardrum and then insert the tube. The tubes fall out on their own after a while, until they do be careful not to get water in your ears.

They do not affect hearing at all, in fact your hearing will probably improve.

My Eustachian tubes are shot, and do not drain any water that gets trapped behind my eardrums, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had to get tubes put in again sometime in the future.

Evidently, it’s not possible for my hearing to improve. I hear like a bat. A bat that hears really well.

Hey, at least now I have something to be proud of. :slight_smile:

I had tubes put in in my early 40s. Whatever they were supposed to do, they didn’t work.

This doesn’t make sense to me. Tubes are placed to try to preserve hearing by venting chronic fluid/infection accumulations out of the middle ear. If hearing is great, and there’s no signficant effusion (fluid collection) visible behind the eardrum that’s threatening hearing, I don’t know why an ENT would want to place a tube.

Sounds like these questions are best addressed by the ENT who has already evaluated you.

I agree with that. He/she should know your ear better than us, but I think I can describe getting tubes. These are all things your ENT will tell you later, but maybe you’ll sleep easier if you hear it now.

My 2 year old is going through ear infections and was scheduled to get tubes Friday but she, ironically, got an ear infection and missed the “operation.” Yeah, they call it an operation, but that’s a stretch. The Doc said they make a tiny incision in the ear and stick in the tube, which is about the size of the screw in a pair of glasses. The tube has holes in it to help get air in and drain fluid. He said it takes about 1 minute per ear, the whole operation takes about 5 minutes and the tubes usually fall out in a year to year and a half. Kids often need them because their natural ear tubes (Eustachian tubes I assume but I never asked) aren’t developed yet. The tubes are meant to buy the kid time by draining fluid until their tubes develop.

They don’t hurt or affect hearing. “Is this an undesirable option?” If you are asking about the downsides, there don’t seem to be any worth worrying about. I asked the Doc about it and he said you just have to keep it dry in the bath or swimming, and they give you earplugs that work great for that. I probed more because my daughter’s mother is skeptical of tubes (actually she’s just skeptical of me being dad). All he could come up with is that there are rare cases of the tube coming out or getting stuck instead of falling out like it’s supposed to do. From what I gathered, fixing those problems is about as easy as putting the tubes in.