you know they seem like a low
maintenance part of the body right your
ears of course they need regular care
and protection but if you're having
ear issues it's likely to be from the
eustachian tube that's that narrow tube
that links the back of the nose to the
middle of the ear its job is to protect
the middle of the ear from disease keep
it ventilated help drain secretions
well a condition called eustachian tube
dysfunction narrows that tube that's
when you get that horrible ear pain that
pressure fullness popping ringing the
muffled sounds and the affected ears oh
it's awful isn't it
so previously ETD was treated with
medication or surgery with ear tubes but
that's really kind of proven to be
ineffective joining me now talk about
how a new procedure could really help is
dr. Kalpana DiPasquale with st. Augustin
ear nose and throat so about 5% of the
population is affected by this probably
a lot of people watching right now and
it is a miserable condition it really is
and I feel like it's funny because in my
patient base it feels like there's so
many more people that are affected by
this problem and for years I've really
had no other solution except medical
therapy or tubes and you know tubes are
really not a great option if you're
talking about patients who scuba dive
they can't clear their ears I have
patients that are pilots that have
issues so those for those people tubes
are just really not a great option so
it's like what do you do and I've been
waiting so in this new thing it's
important to note that the procedure
about to tell you about is not for
children in fact you have to be 18 or
older but I just want to give an example
like with my son we went through three
different sets of tubes my husband as an
adult same thing they fall out you've
got to go through that pain all over
again the surgical procedure this can
can fix it one time
well yes basically so unfortunately it's
not indicated and it's actually over 22
where the ranges look I've been done but
the problem is you know with children
that's the primary issues that there's a
problem with these stations and many of
those children go on to obviously be
adults with the station to have issues
so you know again this is providing in
the patient cohort the studies that
they've done 299 patients and it was a
ninety-nine point seven rate of
improvement Wow okay so we have ad I'm
going to hold this and I'll hold this
for you so let's show us how it works
obviously this is the the nose and this
is going to show the inside yes
of the face so basically you know this
is this catheter gets placed through the
nose and it's really hard on this dummy
like I try to hold this so basically we
wind up putting this this is the
Egyptian tube orifice that you're gonna
see just right behind the nose and
basically this catheter gets placed and
with the balloon and then the balloon
gets inflated we hold the balloon we
inflate the balloon for about two
minutes in the operating room and then
it gets deflated and then the whole
apparatus is removed how does it work so
basically what it does is it creates
kind of a it's kind of a scar tissue so
once it dilates it kind of creates a
good scar tissue by keeping the
eustachian tube opening open and really
the success rate has been pretty high
yeah if it was reading the success rates
like 99% or something along those lines
it but what about your particular
patients that that you what kind of
relief and what are some of the comments
that you're hearing from them well
they're suffering because they have
these problems with clicking muffled
hearing and and just the fullness of the
ear sometimes they feel dizzy because of
this so it's really nice when the you
know I always say a body part you
shouldn't really notice a body part but
you always notice it and then there's a
problem within it and these patients
they wake up there if they're having
these problems they're suffering
throughout the day so it's so nice that
with something so simple that we can get
relief for these people you know I hear
a lot of people that have those symptoms
and they just equate it to allergies
when do you know that it's something
more than allergies if it's just
consistent well you know you station two
problems can be precipitated by
allergies so the right thing to do is
really treat the allergies with medical
therapy but if you're having a
persistent problem then another
procedure should baby be considered we
have something called an ET DQ and it's
a little questionnaire so we because in
my patient population so many of these
patients suffer from this so we get an
idea if their score is higher on that
questionnaire we know that they may be a
candidate for this procedure of course
we try medical therapy first and if it's
ineffective we move on so is is this
safe yes yes there is no adverse effects
on those patient trials that they've
done there were no adverse effects and
99.7% rate of improvement which is
pretty impressive very impressive yes
and what is the cost of that I don't
know I mean it's covered right now it's
covered by many of the insurance
companies but typically what we do in
our office is once
you know that a patient is a candidate
we check into the insurance companies
and check for coverage etc etc but I
don't know what it is for non insurance
but it is covered by most insurance
programs yes it depends on the insurance
some still not yet but most of them are
it is covered fantastic thank you so
much for coming to talk about this we
appreciate it and there's a free lecture
about this procedure on Thursday it's
going to be at the st. Augustine outlets
community room Suite 500 it's going to
be from 6:30 until 8 o'clock once again
you can get more information if you are
suffering and you think that this could
help you absolutely go see dr.
DePasquale so she can give you some
relief Vick talk to you