My son has had 4 operations to remove colesteatoma

If I were in your position, I would seek out a second opinion from a different doctor before doing something like this.

I am in the southern US. My son was diagnosed at the age of 10. We are about a week past his first surgery which was a CWD radical mastoidectomy. He lost all of the hearing related bones and a large portion of the mastoid. He is completely deaf on his bad side. We have had no regrowth and only a removal of scar tissue. My husband also had a cholesteatoma and it regenerated, but his surgeries were done in the early to mid 1990s.

We are very cautious about my son's ear. He does not swim, and when he showers, we plug his ear with cotton and Neosporin to keep it dry. No ear infections in over a year. He used to get them every month.

So are they planning to include a canal wall up and/or down as well?

One possible root cause of cholesteotoma is that there is a malfunctioning eustachian tube. Now in the US, they will do nothing to remedy that. Eustachian Tuboplasty is done as a normal procedure in Europe to remedy this and it works very well. Before this, (I remember my brothers ears when he was young) the would perforate the eardrum and place a small tube in the eardrum. This however, doesn't solve the Eustachian tube problem, but is a work around. Nowever, not many people get an eartube in our Countries anymore. Now, the eustachian tube malfunctioning is a possible cause, but cholesteotoma can also be caused by other things, its not clear what these ingredients are to cause it. When fluid or other debris in the middle ear can't drain away by the eustachian tube you'll get infections and hearing loss as well. In fact, after my cholesteotoma surgery Sept 23, this is what's hitting me. Eustachian tube still doesn't work properly so now liquid is building up. I refused the eartubes and am going to go back on a vacation to the Netherlands, where I am from to have the Eustachian tuboplasty done. It's really as simple as inflating a super small balloon in your eustachian tube, look it up on yourtube. Also, with my eustachian tube problem, cholesteotoma will certainly reoccur in my ear. Your son's situation clearly sounds to me that there has NO rootcause been found to his continuing infections. Also, another thing. I am on antibiotics now after the cholesteotoma surgery, because of the drainage from my ear. I have primary immunodefficiency disease and I get infections very often, also from food etc that normal people will never have. Consequently i had a lot of ear infections, sinusitis etc. So in order to mitigate this condition I get immunoglobins every week to help my immune system. How is the immune system of your son?

Any surgery is really a problem for me as I'll be opened up and in the contrary to other people my immune system cannot fight it. So surgery is really the option is there is other option left and the risks of not doing anything is rather disastrous. Have these two items been looked up by your Dr's?

There has to be a root cause for these continuous infections. Has your son been seeing an immunologist as well to look at the cause of the infections?

For example in my case, the ear specialist cannot just prescribe me antibiotics, because a lot of them don't work in my cause, because of my immune system. 

Maybe your son doesn't have this, but it's good to make sure this is not a factor.

I wish you and your son the best in these difficult times.

Concerning the ear, we're still in child stages.

Thanks,

Reinoud.