Med First ENT Centre

  GET YOUR FLU VACCINE This is the time of the year for adults and children to be given the annual Flu Vaccine. WHY THIS TIME OF THE YEAR? The Respiratory viruses are largely winter viruses and are more transmissible in the cold winter months. Taking a vaccine now will prevent you from catching the Flu this winter season – it takes about two to three weeks before the immunity from the vaccine starts. As we have now learnt so well with Covid-19 respiratory viruses are known to mutate. The vaccine manufacturers isolate the latest strains of the viruses and prepare and new vaccine each year – this should be injected in October or November to prevent against the Flu in the winter season. WHAT DOES IT   PROTECT AGAINST? The most common Flu vaccines contain Four ingredients – the Quadrivalent vaccine. Most of the current Vaccines prevent against Influenza A – H1N1 and H3N2 Influenza B – two strains WHO SHOULD TAKE IT? The Flu vaccine can be taken by any one abo...

There is always something you can do In spite of the tremendous progress made by modern medicine there is so much we still do not know and so much out there that needs to be learned. In this context the problem faced by a physician is how to treat patients with diseases/ problems that are still poorly understood or considered ‘untreatable’? The perplexing ‘sore throat’ that never seems to go away, the pain in the ear for which no cause can be found, the cough that seems to come and go at will and no amount of treatment seems to help? One of the most troublesome problems to treat for an ENT specialist is a condition called Tinnitus – a sound that a person hears inside the ear in the absence of any external stimulus. (Vincent van Gogh had troublesome Tinnitus, probably on account of Meniere’s disease, and there are anecdotal reports linking his attempt at cutting his own ear to his troublesome Tinnitus – though the truth of that story maybe something else.) It is a perplexing complex di...

  Introduction Stridor is the sound produced when an infant breathes through a narrowed upper airway. Laryngomalacia is the most common cause of Stridor in new-borns and is the cause in more than half of those with congenital stridor. The stridor is explained by Bernoulli's principle, which states that as the speed of a moving fluid increases, the pressure within the fluid decreases . When airflow is forced through a narrowed tube, a local area of low pressure creates a vacuum effect distal to the narrowing- This causes the high-pitched sound of the stridor. The sound can be a source of great worry for the parents since in severe stridor the child sometimes struggles to breathe. It is heartening to note that most children with laryngomalacia will improve by 1-2 years of age without any significant morbidity. Some may have troubling and sometimes life threatening laryngomalacia and this require special treatment. Why does Laryngomalacia occur? Though there are many...

  There is always something you can do   In spite of the tremendous progress made by modern medicine there is so much we still do not know and so much out there that needs to be learned. In this context the problem faced by a physician is how to treat patients with diseases/ problems that are still poorly understood or considered ‘untreatable’? The perplexing ‘sore throat’ that never seems to go away, the pain in the ear for which no cause can be found, the cough that seems to come and go at will and no amount of treatment seems to help? One of the most troublesome problems to treat for an ENT specialist is a condition called Tinnitus – a sound that a person hears inside the ear in the absence of any external stimulus. (Vincent van Gogh apparently had troublesome Tinnitus, probably on account of Meniere’s disease, and there are anecdotal reports linking his attempt at cutting his own ear in an effort to cure his Tinnitus – though the truth of that story is question...