Infant Sound Machines for Sleep May Cause Hearing Loss

As a father of two young kids who still use a sound machine to help them sleep, I was quite curious about a recent paper that warned that such devices may cause permanent hearing loss. Researchers compared a total of 65 sounds produced by 14 machines and measured the maximum sound level at a distance of 30 cm (crib-rail placement), 100 cm (beside crib placement), and 200 cm (across room placement). Why is placement important? When it comes to risk of hearing loss due to loud noise exp…

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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…

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Machine Gun Sneezing

ABC News on November 11, 2009 aired a story about a 12 year old girl with an unfortunate condition called " machine gun sneezing ". Apparently, she sneezes up to 16 times a minute all day except while sleeping and started after recovering from a mild cold. To be frank, it's a condition I've never seen before. Per an allergist interviewed for this story, the condition is extremely rare and "can be triggered by hundreds of causes, including allergies , sinus problems …

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Saline Nasal Sinus Irrigation Systems

I must admit... our office is a big fan of the Neilmed Sinus Rinse bottle for patients who suffer from chronic sinusitis and severe allergies as it is cheap, easy to clean, and it works. However, many patients who are already fans of flushing the nose with saline water end up purchasing saline irrigation systems. There's a bunch of these devices sold on Amazon.com . Check them out below, but I would suggest that you first become adept and able to tolerate saline flushes using the Neilmed…

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