Allergic Laryngitis (Hoarse Voice Due to Allergies)

I've finally taken the time to video-record a patient suffering from laryngitis due to allergies  both before and after successful treatment. Check out the video below of a singer who suffered from severe untreated allergies both before and after treatment (shown in the latter half of the video). Note the thick clear mucus on the vocal cords. Several strong throat-clears were required to remove this thick mucus from her vocal cords (incidentally, she did have some mild right vocal cord…

8/25/2018 0

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The Longer Hoarseness Lasts, the More Expensive it Becomes to Treat

It is generally accepted that if a voice is hoarse for over 2 weeks, an ENT evaluation is recommended.  The main concern is whether there is something more serious going on that would require specialist treatment whether it be unusual medications or even surgery. Researchers have also found out that patients who see an ENT after 3 weeks of hoarseness also pay substantially more money than if they had seen an ENT earlier. The longer patients wait, the more expensive it becomes to correct t…

4/22/2015 0

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How Common is Hoarseness?

At some point, we all have suffered from a hoarse voice whether from illness or from yelling. However, it was unclear exactly how common this malady is until now... and apparently, the answer is "very common"... According to a study looking to answer this question, hoarseness affected 17.9 million adults in 2012.   The average age was 49 years old and 63% were women. Overall, 10% saw a health care professional for their hoarseness and 40% were given a diagnosis. Infectious la…

5/04/2014 0

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30% of Patients with Reflux will NOT Respond to Medications

Specifically, patients who are suffering with throat symptoms of reflux will often not respond to proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) medications. Such throat symptoms include  throat-clearing , phlegmy throat , cough , hoarseness, and globus . Known as LPR (laryngopharyngeal reflux), a study was done measuring the pH at the throat level after 4+ weeks of twice daily PPI. This retrospective study found that although 67.4% had symptom normalization, 32.6% of patients showed no subjective or ob…

3/24/2014 0

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Treatment for Vocal Tremor

Vocal tremor is characterized by a rhythmic undulating vocal quality whenever talking, much akin to vibrato that can not be turned off. In the past, it was felt that use of botulinum toxin type A ( botox ) to treat vocal tremor was not possible nor realistic given the multiple muscle groups involved. This is in contrast to dystonias of the voice (i.e., spasmodic dysphonia ) where only one muscle group is involved and is readily and easily treated with botox injections to the affected vocal co…

7/13/2013 0

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Compact EMG System for Targeted Muscle Injections

An EMG system ( E lectro M yo G raphy) is a critical piece of equipment when it comes to targeted muscle injections in and around the neck, especially when you cannot see or feel the muscle. This scenario is especially true when dealing with spasmodic dysphonia for which targeted botox injections are quite helpful. Given the muscles that need to be injected are contained inside the voicebox and not able to be seen and felt from outside the neck, accurate injection is quite difficult withou…

1/12/2013 1

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