Ayden’s Hearing Sensitivity!

I took Ayden with me to the clinic tonight because I had to use of the machines for my final exam. I wasn’t going to, however, he wanted to come and I didn’t think that we would be there that long so it wasn’t going to be that bad. What I needed to finish was going to take like five minutes, if I could remember how to use the machine, lol.

I was right, it did only take me five minutes to get done what I needed too and then… I grabbed the chance to look in Ayden’s ears. I don’t know if I’ve said anything before, but he has this big chunk of ear wax (or what I’m assuming is ear wax) in his left ear, so much so that I can’t see his ear drum in that ear and it’s been there since LAST August (that I know of because his doctor said something about it at his five year old check up and then I’ve been keeping an eye on it at school). His doctor said that it would work its way out… and it hasn’t moved AT ALL! You know, because I’ve been checking. Yes, I admit that I have what might some consider a sick obsession of looking in my son’s ears. I’m a future audiologist, so sue me, lol!

And so, the ear wax hasn’t moved yet. I also looked in his other year and saw what I thought was a retracted ear drum. However, I can’t be sure since I haven’t actually seen one in person yet, just pictures and it didn’t look overly pulled back. Well, to determine if it was or not, I ran tympanograms on him. That test tells me how well his middle ear is functioning. On previous times that I’ve run this test on Ayden, I’ve gotten abnormal results, but both times, he had a cold and so the results were explainable. This time… NORMAL! So excited! I was about done then, but Ayden really wanted me to play the ‘beeps’ for him. IE: give him a hearing test.

Well, at his five year old check up, the nurse did a short hearing screening with one of their tools and said that he wasn’t responding at the lowest levels for a few frequencies. I don’t remember what they considered the lowest level, but his doctor wasn’t overly concerned. She said we could follow up with hearing test with an audiologist or just wait and see at his next appointment how it was, since it wasn’t exactly a loss. I wasn’t concerned because I knew I could test him at school, versus having to get it done at the doctor’s office.

I tested his hearing a couple of months ago, but didn’t really get reliable results since he wasn’t responding as he should and was fidgeting the whole time. This time, I just tested one frequency quieter than what we consider the ‘highest’ normal level, both for the tones and speech. And… he’s NORMAL! I wasn’t concerned that he had a hearing loss, but I did want to know what he was hearing. And since I didn’t actually find his thresholds, I’m sure he hears a little better than what I stopped at.

Below is an audiogram of where some everyday sounds fall. On the left side you see the levels in decibels. It goes from 0 (which is really quiet, and actually we test down to –10, up to 120 which is really loud) IE: leaves rustling are quiet and lawn mowers are really loud) and along the top are the different frequencies from 125 really low pitched sounds, to 8000 really high pitched sounds. We consider anything 20-25 dB and lower normal hearing. Ayden is hearing at 15 dB, possibly even better because I only tested that low.This is an audiogram of what someone’s normal hearing thresholds would look like once plotted.So, after all of this, I wanted to try and take a picture of Ayden’s ear drums with this otoscope camera we have at school. However, I couldn’t get it to work. BOO! But, I will, and I will bring Ayden back in to take a picture because I’m crazy like that! We are always looking for something different to take pictures of.

And then, I went in and tried to get rid of that ear wax! I want it OUT! Unfortunately, it was not to be moved! Its hard and dark, like you needed to hear that, and not moving anytime soon! But this was the first time I had Ayden at school where I had the materials I needed to really get a good look at the ear wax and even attempt to remove it. Ayden sat really good and still in the chair and I even got to pick at it a little bit and he said that it wasn’t hurting. I didn’t try too hard to remove it because our professor was adamant about us not going any further than we were comfortable with and well Ayden’s my son, so of course I’m going to be extra careful.

But seeing that it hasn’t moved any in almost a year, at Ayden’s six year check up, I am going insist that his doctor remove it, and/or if she can’t, that we be referred to an ENT who can remove it. ENTs usually remove ear wax with an operating microscope. Jay’s asked if I could get one of my supervisors to remove it (the one who taught us) and I was like no way am I having him put something in Ayden’s ear! I’ve had him look in my ears before and it’s not necessarily very comfortable, I don’t want Ayden scarred for life, lol!

Okay, not that you really want to read a whole post about ear wax and hearing tests… but if you got this far, you did anyways, lol!

And since Ayden was such a gem while I was at school and even let me look in his ears, I treated him to Cold Stone when we left! YUM!

CIAO! LOVE ME!