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Child Headphones Too Loud? Safe Listening ENT Guide | London & Essex

  Is My Child Using Headphones Too Loudly? A Parent’s Guide to Safe Listening Headphones have become part of everyday childhood. Children use them for tablets, music, gaming, schoolwork, online videos, audiobooks, long car journeys, flights, and quiet time at home. For parents, this raises an important question: could my child’s headphones be too loud? The concern is sensible. Exposure to loud sounds can affect hearing, especially when repeated over time. The risk is not just about one loud moment. It is also about how loud the sound is, how long the child listens, how often they listen, and whether they are trying to drown out background noise. Mr Gaurav Kumar, Consultant ENT Surgeon , assesses children with ear, hearing, and paediatric ENT concerns from London, East London, Brentwood, Romford, Ilford, Redbridge, Chelmsford, and the wider Essex area. This guide explains why safe listening matters, how parents can reduce risk, and when a child may need a hearing test or ENT review....
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Ear Drum Perforation Surgery

What is myringoplasty or tympanoplasty? If you have perforated eardrum or hole in the eardrum, then your surgeon may recommend ear surgery to close this hole and in some cases to help repair the hearing. Why do we have eardrum? The eardrum separates the ear canal from the middle ear. The sound hits the middle ear and is then transferred to the inner ear where the sound is converted to an electrical signal and taken to the brain to interpret. Our eardrum is very similar to speakers with the magnet in the centre and paper around the magnet. If there is tear in the paper, the sound dampens down. So mainly eardrum perforation can lead to an ear infection as now bacteria can reach easily into the middle ear and hearing loss as now the sound transmission is interrupted. Why do I have a hole in my ear drum? Hole in the eardrum can be due to trauma due to earbud injury or barotrauma while landing on an aeroplane. If someone has grommet or ventilation tube inserted, this...
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Cholesteatoma Ear Surgery

What is a Cholesteatoma? The ear has three parts outer ear (ear lobe and ear canal), the middle ear ( eardrum and bones of hearing) and inner ear. Cholesteatoma is skin from ear canal migrating into the middle ear. Like the skin on head keeps shedding and can cause dandruff. Similarly, skin in the middle ear can cause cholesteatoma, which can form a gradually expanding sac and can damage structures in the middle ear to give deafness, inner ear to give permanent deafness, nerve to the face to give a facial weakness or rarely give infection of the lining of the brain to cause meningitis Is cholesteatoma surgery or mastoidectomy done under general anaesthetic? Cholesteatoma is a surgical problem. Unfortunately, no medications work on it. Cholesteatoma surgery is called mastoidectomy, i.e. clearing cholesteatoma infection from the mastoid bone (the hard bone behind your ear). The procedure is done under general, i.e. you will be sleeping while the procedure is don...
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Ear Surgery

Mr Gaurav Kumar      Consultant ENT surgeon This information relates to ear surgery ie tympanoplasty (repair of ear drum), mastoid surgery, stapes surgery and ossiculoplasty. What is mastoid bone? Mastoid bone is like a honeycomb bone which can be felt behind the ear. It is connected to ear proper, so infection can spread to this bone. Cholesteatoma, is a kind of ear infection which can erode bone and cause complications of smelly ear discharge, hearing loss, rarely facial weakness or brain infection. Why should I have ear surgery? The main aim of ear surgery is to make the ear dry and safe, so that patient does not have any more infections and its complication. Other is to improve or preserve the hearing if possible. How is an operation performed? The operation is generally performed under a general anaesthetic but rarely can be performed under local anaesthetic. A cut on the skin may be made behind the ear or front of the ear. We will discuss w...
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