When you're sick one thing that can make you feel better is when your doctor can
empathize with what you're going through. Yeah if you've ever experienced the
misery of a sinus infection or just want relief our next guest has been there,
done that Dr. Ethan Handler is a Board Certified Ear, Nose, and Throat
Specialist and Cosmetic Surgeon and he has undergone a Balloon Sinuplasty
himself to relieve his sinus suffering. He's here along with Dr.
Madan Kandula from ADVENT who's also been through it themselves.
I feel like so I wanted to question did you just do it for fun just to like kind of know what it's like Doctors are like "Hey, try this."
You know, I think I remember when my Doctor was delivering my kids I was like he's never done this
You know but you guys have actually done the stuff that you are talking about, right?
The delivery would be a little bit challenging but I was suffering quite a bit for months
you know I have young kids and it was just a sick season you know and so
we were passing everything around and it was starting to affect work and I want to make sure I can still
you know help patients and I was starting to get really bad headaches and so I had
the luxury but you know
I had the benefit of being able to grab him after clinic and being like you gotta do this
Yeah so anyway I grabbed him after clinic and you know had him Balloon my sinuses
and help with that sinus congestion. How did it feel? It's interesting
because I talk to patients a lot about what to expect and um even after having it done
I still can't quite exactly say what it felt like it's just there's a weird
pressure sensation but you know it's perfectly manageable. What about the
relief okay so this is a great this is a before and after right a CT scan so this
is an anatomical issue obviously that we're looking at and that would be the
main reason someone would have the Balloon Sinuplasty
right? Correct so you know if it's a narrowing in the sinuses
and so when you
have a sinus infection things get inflamed all that you know mucus gets
trapped and so you know if you don't open that area up you know you're not
gonna get effective drain engine and not getting resolution of symptoms.
I wondered the relief was it right away for both of you after
having the procedures that you had. Did you feel relieved after you ballooned me?
No I mean I felt I felt pretty instant gratification and relief and I'd had a
really bad headache and so that night was so much better than the previous
days for sure. He had an active infection going on so a lot of times when we do this it's more he had a chronic infection then there was an active infection on top of it
so what's happening in that situation the sinuses are shutting down and you get
this pressure literal pressure in your head that's building up and building up
and so we go in there and we open those passageways all that gunk comes out so
when we did his procedure a lot of pus was coming out of there which is nasty
but good I mean it's good that that stuff goes it's bad when that stuff's
you know staying trapped short of what we did I mean the other option would be
medications which uses on plenty antibiotics and that kind of stuff
if it's not draining you know you're stuck you're dead in the water and so it's
just doing something to get things open um and this works. How long does the procedure take?
It depends, it takes a little time to get the nose numbed up about a half an hour or so
most that just sort of sitting around the actual doing it about 10-15 minutes
each each passageway that are opening is just a few seconds to get to get that
passageway open so you know it's not a big deal by any means I think that's you
know for Ethan it was one of those situations where you know he's done
plenty of these procedures and sort of knowing sort of second hand how relatively easy
it is makes it lower at the bar to sort of say okay I'm done with this I'm sick
of this let me get some get me you know let me get some relief well I'm sure now
that you know the the difference that it makes to actually do this you you you
probably felt like why did I suffer so long why did I try so many other things
when you're dealing with patients obviously that empathy is going to
translate to how they're feeling in the way that they're suffering I would
assume that people try a lot of things though before they come to this how long
before you know there are a lot of things that you recommend before you get
to this point with other patients as well right yeah I think a lot of
patients you know are on antibiotics they walk into a drug store they trying
to figure out like on the shelf like what kind of sprays right you know and
they're very good at marketing all the medications you know you walk in during
the cold season and here's thousands of different things and how are they
supposed to figure out what they're supposed to use. Well yeah it was something I wanted to ask you guys
This is great for someone like me who maybe suffers from chronic sinus infections I always have
a couple of year but the anatomical issue can only be corrected so I'm a
huge fan of neti pots I know you are too because I asked you about it years ago
when I started using it every day but the anatomical issues that you guys are talking about and that
you've had procedures for it the neti pot isn't going to take care of that
right so the neti pot is great if it gets where it needs to get to so for for
Ethan when he had his so before he had his procedure done those sinus
openings were shut so you can wash water next to the openings all day and it's
never going to help you get the sinus openings open and that simple neti pot getting in
there getting the junk out of there helps so it you know I mean it's just a
matter of it's pretty simple concept there's nothing fancy there if things
are shut you're not gonna be able to get you know blast water through those
doorways. Does it permanently stay open so you have the Balloon procedure
does because you wonder if it will go back to the way it was before
how long lasting is it? It's typically forever so there's about a 5% chance of
things wanting to shut down those openings are boney opening so we get in
there and inflate that Balloon I mean a Balloon sounds flimsy this Balloon is
not flimsy when it inflates it goes to six millimeters and so whatever is in
its way it pushes it out of its way and so again because their bony openings it
stays where we put it which is a nice thing. Okay, so you recently opened a third location so people can find you in
three different places, in Mequon, in Wauwatosa, and also in Oconomowoc as well
you've got clinics there the Balloon Sinuplasty is available at all locations
Is that correct? Absolutely. Alright so now you can find them. Here's the
phone number to call for an appointment 414-771-6780
you know spring is coming you know those allergies are going to get
you if you're the person who's been suffering going and see if there's more
that can be done to make your life a lot better advent.md for more. Thanks so much
you guys thank you. Thank you for talking about your experience with it helps people to know
you've actually been through it it's really cool. Thanks so much.