The Art of Facial Paralysis

Professional photographer Sage Sohier spent 3 years in a Boston ENT clinic photographing patients suffering from facial paralysis along with family members. These intimate portrayals document the personal struggles patients with facial paralysis go through that is shared with family. Patients shown include children suffering from this malady. Her collection of photographs include people with mild to complete degrees of facial paralysis, a condition that usually occurs on just one side of the ...

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Mal de Debarquement Syndrome - Rare Cause of Dizziness

The BBC recently printed a story describing a rare condition called mal de debarquement which causes dizziness, typically after a boat cruise, though can occur with airplane flights and even a long drive in a car with switchbacks (going up/down a mountain). Two signs that a patient has mal de debarquement are if they feel a rocking sensation for weeks or months starting AFTER a cruise and two, if they're much better when in motion like vigorous exercise, but feel much worse when staying still. Read the st ...

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Some Facts About Q-Tips and Ears

In this week's episode of "Girls," Hannah, grappling with OCD, inserted a Q-tip deep into her ear canal and "heard air hiss out the hole" due to perforating her eardrum. Although this scene came out of a TV show, this scenario is not uncommon and results in many ENT office visits every month. Some facts about Q-tips as it relates to the ear... It should never be used to clean earwax within the ear canal. In fact, on Unilever's website (the maker of Q-tips), the company explicitly states that Q-tips should o ...

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Why Do Biopsy Results Take So Long? [video]

One of the most common questions I get after a surgical procedure is how long it takes before biopsy results are back... especially when a mass was removed and there is a cancer concern. Does it take a few hours? 24 hours? Days? Disappointingly, it can take up to 7 days if not longer. You want to know why? Well, rather than explaining, watch a 6-minute video that explains the numerous steps that goes into providing a diagnosis after a mass is removed... in this particular case, a neck mass though the same steps apply to any mass removed from anywhere else in the body. ...

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Negative Ear Pressure Causing Inability to Pop a Clogged Ear

Have you ever closed the lid on an air-tight container containing a left-over hot meal and stuck it in the refrigerator? And than when you try to open the lid the next day once that hot meal cools down, it is REALLY hard to open the lid because of the accumulated negative pressure? In essence, the negative pressure has "locked" the lid down. Well, something similar can also potentially happen inside the ear with eustachian tube dysfunction, especially with negative pressure (rather than positive pressure). Eustachian tube dys ...

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Uvula Piercing

It happens, but thankfully rare... Ear piercing I will do, but truly uvula piercing is not something I would recommend given a whole host of problems it may cause including: • Gagging • Snoring • Airway obstruction • Uvular stretching • Uvular bisection • Accidental inhalation if it comes loose • Uvular swelling etc. etc. etc. Indeed, most people would rather get their uvula removed rather than "enhancing" it! ...

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Another Egg-Free Flu Vaccine Approved by FDA

First there was Flucelvax introduced in 2012 and now there is Flublock, both considered egg-free for those concerned with egg allergy in traditional flu vaccines. Rather than being cultured in eggs, Flucelvax is cultured in mammalian cells and Flublock is grown in caterpillar cells injected by an insect virus containing the flu gene. Both vaccines are approved for use in people 18 years and older. Why the concern of egg-allergic patients with the traditional flu vaccine used to defend against both seasonal and pa ...

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