November 25th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Health Tips
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A deviated septum is a well known factor causing nasal obstruction in people. However, many patients with a deviated septum will also state that there are times when they can breathe just fine from their nose. As such, can a deviated septum truly be the cause of their nasal obstructive symptoms? Shouldn’t the obstruction be constant?
The blunt answer is ABSOLUTELY nasal obstruction can be intermittent OR constant with a deviated septum!!! It’s more a question of degree.
To begin with, a deviated septum is when the wall that separates the right and left nasal cavities is bent one way (green arrow in left illustration) instead of being perfectly straight (right illustration).
If there is no mucosal swelling, a person with a deviated septum is able to breathe from both sides just fine. However, if there is the slightest bit of mucosal swelling from turbinate hypertrophy, allergies, upper respiratory infection, or any other environmental irritation, the side that is more narrow will obstruct much more readily with less swelling given there is just “less room” for swelling to occur before obstruction occurs.
Below is the same exact nose and septum as above, but with mucosal swelling present. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
November 19th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Video
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Our office has produced a new video describing “where” snoring comes from determined by a simple procedure known as sedated or sleep endoscopy. At its most basic definition, snoring is noise produced from a vibrating mucosal surface in the upper airway.
Though snoring can be defined simply, the tough question is WHERE are these vibrating mucosal surfaces? Because unless one can define WHERE the snoring is coming from, successful treatment can’t be pursued definitively.
An office exam performed while a patient is awake is suboptimal as the patient is awake… and not snoring. As such, it is an educated guess where the snoring problem is stemming from.
To this end, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
November 6th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Health Tips
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Though most people like the professional nose whistler shown here require an instrument to enable the nose to whistle, in others it occurs naturally due to unique anatomic features within the nose.
Why might someone’s nose whistle?
Septal Perforation
The most common reason it may occur constantly is due to a hole in the septum (septal perforation). The septum is a wall that divides the right nasal cavity from the left side. Normally, it should be straight and without any openings.
However, when a hole is present in the septum and it is in just the right size and place, whenever air is breathed in and out of the nose, it will whistle. In this situation, the hole is the “window” of the whistle and the nose itself is the mouthpiece.
Correction of this problem is by Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
August 28th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Research
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The basic function of the human nose is to warm and humidify the air before it reaches the lungs. Because of the wide variation of human habitats from the polar cold and dry air to the equatorial hot and humid weather, one would expect the nose to accommodate to these climate extremes accordingly through evolutionary pressures.
In essence, logically one would expect the nose to change shape to enhance time that air is in contact with the warm and moist nasal interior in cold and dry climates compared to the opposite environmental extreme.
German scientists evaluated this hypothesis through Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
If there is no mucosal swelling, a person with a deviated septum is able to breathe from both sides just fine. However, if there is the slightest bit of mucosal swelling from turbinate hypertrophy, allergies, upper respiratory infection, or any other environmental irritation, the side that is more narrow will obstruct much more readily with less swelling given there is just “less room” for swelling to occur before obstruction occurs.
