Is a perforated eardrum dangerous?
Your grand daughter’s ear drum may have burst (perforated) as a result of an infection in her middle ear. It is likely that she complained of severe pain in her ear which may have come on very quickly. Alternatively she may have had earache on and off for several days which suddenly became a lot worse. She would suddenly have felt a lot better but you would have noticed mucous, pus or blood pouring from her ear. Although this is, as you say, extremely scary, it is in itself not dangerous and is nature’s way of relieving pressure from the build up of pus behind the ear drum. This in turn relieves the pain of the infection and allows it to get better. Repeated perforation should however be avoided if possible because each time the ear drum bursts it leaves a small amount of scar tissue as it heals. Scar tissue is thicker than normal tissue and makes the ear drum less flexible to noise vibration. If your grand daughter were to suffer repeated perforations which scarred her ear drum it cou
