Hearing clearly after op

Monklands praise

A pioneering operation at Monklands Hospital has allowed a patient to hear clearly for the first time in more than five decades.

Patricia Duncan was deaf in her right ear with 95 per cent damage to the eardrum, after a childhood infection, but is now reaping the benefits of groundbreaking surgery by NHS Lanarkshire consultant Arun Iyer.

He carr ied out the procedure with an endoscope – a long tube with a camera on the end – reducing pain and recovery time.

Mr Iyer said: “Traditional surgery involves cutting a 3-4cm piece of tissue either from the front or behind the ear and using it as a graft to repair the hole.

“Endoscopic ear surgery prevents the need for an incision in the skin, resulting in less pain; I insert the endoscope via the ear canal and watch where I’m going on a screen.

“Once I reach the eardrum, I ‘lift’ it, then cut a small graft from the lining of cartilage just in front of the ear canal to patch the eardrum.

“It causes less pain as the incision is smaller; patients can hear almost immediately as the ear doesn’t need to be packed with dressing.

“Of course, this procedure doesn’t always cure deafness, but it does mean eardrum repair is more painless.”

Now the Monklands surgeon is teaching the technique to counterparts across the UK.

Patricia, 59, said: “I just put up with it even though I had to plug the ear with cotton wool in the shower because getting water in it was agony.

“It’s amazing to be able to hear through it for the first time since I was a wee girl.”