Epidemiology 2 Precipitating factors.
It usually affects children in their infancy upto 5 yrs. Their symptoms are deafness which are usually undiagnosed as their parents cannot understand their child's own disease. Mostly this condition resolves within a fortnight but for some it may carry on and be harmful. The usual precipitating factors are overcrowding and bad hygiene practices of which smoking of parents is one cause apart from breast feeding in faulty posture. The correct posture for great feeding is sitting down and putting head of infant on mothers nipples. Other practices like stopping of smoking by parents greatly influence. The outcome of the child's disease.
In elderly patients if their is this very same problem it is to be taken seriously as it may be the sole indicator for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
In children there are adenoids which are usually the precipitating factor.
Cause
The basic pathogenesis is Eustachian tube dysfunction which is due to the shortness & straight forward position of the child's Eustachian tube.
Symptoms
The symptoms are deafness which is conductive in nature, heaviness of ear and or tinnitus of middle ear origin. Usually the disease is unilateral; but in cases of rhinosinusitis or allergy, this disease affects both case.
Treatment
The treatment of this disease is usually by drugs alone amoxicillin and Prednisolone as syrup. Can be taken by the child for 14 days. Sometimes grommet insertion at the antero inferior segment of the ear drum has to be done but before this E-Tube insufflation by air is necessary as without an air fluid level. The fluid will never drain out just by simply inserting the grommet. In rare cases tympanostomy tubes are necessary which have to be put for at least 6 months but their is a flip side as the child would have a permanent perforation in their ear drum.