Frequently Asked Questions
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How do I know if I need to see an ENT specialist?
If there's something that's bothering you in the head and neck, you'll probably start by seeing your primary doctor. That's a great place to begin with anything.
If there's any concern or any issue at that point they'll have you come and see us, an ENT, so that we can figure out the next steps and what to do to care for that problem.
Do you treat young patients?
Here at ENT Family Clinic, we see patients of all ages—pediatric to geriatric.
What are some ENT conditions you commonly treat?
Some of the things we see are hearing loss, sinus problems, difficulty breathing through the nose, sleep apnea. With kids, we'll have often chronic ear infections or tonsil infections.
How can I book an appointment?
It's super easy to book an appointment. We have a fully equipped reception team that are available to take your call and to book you.
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If it's easier you to email you can do that as well and our reception team will reach out to you when it's most accommodating.
What is your patient support program?
We have a full reception team that are available and willing to help all patient need. We also have a patient portal where you're able to log in and enter all your demographic information before coming in for your appointment to make it smoother and quicker. You're also able to get patient test results and visit notes on there as well.
What are your diagnostic tools and processes?
The most important thing that we can do is to just talk with the patient--understand what they've been experiencing, what's going on with them, what their symptoms are. Then we'll do a physical exam. We'll look in the ears, nose, and throat. Sometimes, we'll do a camera or a scope to look deeper in the sinuses or down in the vocal cord area. We can also do a CT scan or allergy test to get a deeper idea of what's triggering some sinus or nasal complaints.
We have a range of tools and interventions that we can do but we tailor it to each patient to make sure they're getting just the care that they need.
What can people expect after a procedure?
​After a certain procedure is done, we'll give very clear instructions so that patients know exactly know what to expect afterwards, exactly how things will go.
They always have a way to contact us in case of emergency and so we really make sure that people are comfortable getting from the procedure that's done until we make sure that they're fully recovered.
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What does an ENT doctor do & what health issues do they handle?
​ENT Doctors see a range of things related to the head and neck. We see problems with ears, hearing loss, difficulty breathing problems with the sinuses, throat problem, difficulty with their voice--all sorts of things you can imagine with the head & neck, cancer and non-cancer.
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People will come with a variety of issues or things they are experiencing, and we'll help them figure out what's going on and how to get them to the next step, and how to get them better.
What treatment options exist for allergies?
Here at ENT Family, we offer allergy treatments for patients who have environmental allergies. They're either injections or oral known as SLIT or SCIT. SLIT is Sublingual Immunotherapy and SCIT is Subcutaneous Immunotherapy.
The injections are once weekly for the first year and then monthly after that.
For the oral, it's twice daily for 2-5 years depending on the severity of someone's allergies.
What options do you offer for treating sinus infections?
​When it comes to sinus infections, we're going to start with the least invasive options first. So, we're going to start by just trying some antibiotics and nasal sprays. We have an algorithm and a method to try to help people get their chronic sinus problems better without requiring surgical interventions.
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We can start with an allergy test, or a scope to look at their sinuses, maybe a CT scan. Eventually, if we need to, certainly there's non invasive or minimally invasive options that we can do like a balloon sinuplasty, or an operative sinus surgery.
But the first, second, and third things that we're going to try to do is help this patient without operating if we can because I think that's what every patient deserves.
What are the treatment options available for ear infections?
​For ear infections, it depends on whether we're talking about a chronic ear infection or an acute ear infection. We're going to make sure that we're treating the patient with the least invasive options first.
So, we're going to see if we can get some antibiotics or some simple treatments. But if it's something that's an ongoing issue, we're going to have other options we can do whether it's an ear tube, or other interventions to get them fully better.
What options do you offer for treating hearing issues?
For hearing loss, depending on the type of hearing loss, we need to first figure out whether it's a problem with the nerve or a problem with the sounds getting all the way into the nerve. That can be as simple as ear infections or wax or could be as complex as an injury to the nerve of hearing itself.
We use different tools to decipher which one it is, a hearing test, and eventually we can offer some solutions for hearing loss depending on what the source of that problem is.
What options do you offer for treating throat pain?
For throat pain, we would start by understanding how long it's been a problem for. How long it's been bothering somebody, and what seemed to trigger it.
Sometimes we can figure out the cause pretty easily. It might be something that the swallowed or got stuck in their throat or could be something that's been going on for a while.
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After a physical exam and after we get the history from the patient, we'll probably do a flexible laryngoscopy where we put a camera through the nose so we can look at the throat.
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We use some numbing spray in order to make it more comfortable and patients tolerate it quite well. It gives us an ability to look inside the body so that we can see what's causing the problems.