Alternatives to dealing with enlarged adenoids besides steroids and surgery?

Does anyone have experience with a child that has enlarged adenoids? I found out my daughter has "huge" adenoids, blocking off 80 - 90% of her nasal passageway. The ENT said our only options are to try steroids, both nasal and systemic, and if that doesn't work, surgically remove them. (She is also dealing with eczema, on her skin and inside her ear canal).

Although I know that many people do it, I would prefer DD to not take steroids or have surgery. Does anyone have any suggestions of alternatives? Any doctors that anyone can recommend?

TIA

Re: Alternatives to dealing with enlarged adenoids besides steroids and surgery?

Adenoids are important for babies as they help with immunities and the body's ability to fight infection. They get smaller as we get older and most adults don't even have adenoids any more. There is really no medical reason for adenoids after a child reaches 3/4.

Have you had a sleep study done to determine apnea? I wasn't too keen on surgery either except that I know that open mouth posture from mouth breathing WILL change the structure of a child's face. Also, apnea is pretty serious. My DD was diagnosed with moderate apnea.

We are on day 9 post-op from my DD's adenoidectomy (she also had a tonsilectomy) and I'm already seeing a difference in her breathing. She no longer snores and is waking up SO much happier now.

Has your LO been diagnosed with allergies? We did a course of Nasonex and Allegra to see if that helped- it didn't for us, but maybe that would work? Steroids seems worse than surgery to me as I wouldn't want my kid on steroids for any extended period of time. That option was never presented to us by our ENT though.

Re: Alternatives to dealing with enlarged adenoids besides steroids and surgery?

Message edited 1/15/2012 1:09:13 PM.

Re: Alternatives to dealing with enlarged adenoids besides steroids and surgery?

I'm a speech pathologist and I know the changes due to my anatomy classes. Here's a site I found that can explain it: Mouth breathing

I was also concerned about my daughter's hyponasal speech. She sounded like she had a cold all the time. That can impact speech development and intelligibility. For example, her /m/ and /b/ sounded exactly the same.

Once I took her to the ENT with my concerns he wanted a sleep study done where it was confirmed that my daughter would stop breathing 30-40 times a night for up to 10 seconds each time. She snored pretty loudly. I was surprised to hear how often she stopped breathing because initially the tech said she had a limited number of apnea events. But she wasn't technically "qualified" to read the results, just being nice.

I have a friend whose son also recently had the surgery. His sleep study showed he stopped breathing over 400 times a night for up to 30 seconds. THAT is scary.

I live in maryland, so I can't help you with recs, but I definitely recommend you see an ENT. The ENT can help you with the allergies if there are any.

Message edited 1/15/2012 1:38:19 PM.

Re: Alternatives to dealing with enlarged adenoids besides steroids and surgery?

I would get a sleep study before you make a decision. My DS was stopping breathing quite a bit at night so that my choice for surgery much easier to make. Def not an easy one for sure though