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Showing posts from January, 2020

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Something Stuck Up Child’s Nose? What Parents Should Do | London & Essex ENT

  Something Stuck Up My Child’s Nose? A Parent’s Guide to Nasal Foreign Bodies Young children explore the world with extraordinary curiosity. Unfortunately, that curiosity sometimes involves putting things in places they do not belong. Beads, peas, bits of toys, paper, foam, seeds and small pieces of food can all end up inside a child’s nose. Sometimes a parent actually sees it happen. At other times nobody notices, and the first clue appears days later when the child develops a blocked nostril, an unpleasant smell or discharge from only one side of the nose. A nasal foreign body is the medical term for an object that has become lodged inside the nose. Most can be removed safely, but how parents respond matters . Repeated attempts with tweezers, fingers or other instruments can push an object deeper or injure the nasal lining. There is also one particularly important exception that every parent should know about: a button battery in the nose requires urgent hospital assessme...

Boil in the Ear canal can be very painful...

How do I know I have boil in the ear canal? The ear canal is lined by skin up to the eardrum. Skin in the outer third of the ear canal has hair follicles. Hair follicles can get infected with bacteria and can form boil or furunculosis. It is challenging to look in our own ear canal. You can only feel a bump in the ear canal entrance which is tender to touch. Why is so painful when we have boil in the ear? Ear canal skin is very tightly attached to underlying cartilage. So any swelling in the skin stretches it and makes it very sore to touch. How do we get boil in the ear canal?  Most common causes of boil in the canal is dryness of the skin and trauma. Dry skin leads to cracks and these cracks can get infected. People who use dry earbuds, fingers, towel edges or pens and traumatise ear canal skin, which can get infected with bacteria. How do I release the temptation of using earbuds? Some people can get very dry skin due to sensitivity to soup, shampoo o...

Do you suffer with tonsillitis?

What are tonsils? Tonsils are a part of the immune system which help the body to fight infections. In some cases, these tonsils itself can get infected and cause tonsillitis. Depending on how frequently the tonsils are getting infected,  it can be referred to as recurrent tonsillitis or chronic tonsillitis. One episode of severe throat pain with foul breath, difficulty in swallowing and in some cases, enlarged lymph nodes, is called acute tonsillitis. In individuals, this acute tonsillitis can progress to the collection of pus around tonsils to form a peritonsillar abscess or Quinsy. What are the causes of acute tonsillitis? Acute tonsillitis, in most cases, can be due to viral infection or bacterial infection. In infectious mononucleosis it can because by Ebstein bar virus and is known as glandular fever. In glandular fever, along with the lymph nodes, your spleen may become enlarged. It is essential to avoid any contact sport during recovery for 4 to 6 wee...