Hearing Test Disaster

Ava’s hearing test went about as poorly as such a thing could go. Crying, refusal, not wanting to enter the testing booth, not wanting anyone to go near her ears, and so on.

They did manage to do tympanograms. That’s a test where they insert a probe to a small handheld device into the ear canal. The device changes the air pressure in the ear canal in order to vibrate the eardrum and then measures the results. If the eardrum doesn’t vibrate properly, that usually means that there’s fluid behind it in the middle ear indicating a possible ear infection or negative pressure that might exist at the tail end of a cold. Those things could affect hearing, so the audiologist doing the testing wants to know if something is going on. Ava actually is at the tail end of a cold and her tympanograms did indicate reduced mobility.

Next they tried to do her hearing test. She pretty much refused to cooperate at all. They’re sure she heard white noise at the loudest level, but couldn’t confirm anything else. Sigh.

So, next week we have an appointment with an ENT to check the health of her ears and to attempt to check her hearing again. We need to confirm that she can hear at all frequencies. If there is some hearing loss, we need to know. Finding out is going to be the hard part.