Speaker 1:
We have a very comprehensive practice, a general ENT practice here in Mason City. In the last 25 years, our ENT group has grown from three ENT doctors to six. We all trained at excellent, well-respected university training programs for ENT, and we decided to come to Mason City because we wanted to live in a smaller, rural area, provide rural healthcare. We are at the cutting edge. We have the most current technology. We can provide the best current ENT healthcare here, just as anywhere else.
We deal with all sorts of ears, nose and throats problems, just like our specialty says. And so we deal with ear problems and do ear surgeries to enhance hearing or take care of chronic ear disease. We manage nasal and sinus problems, things like nasal obstruction, nasal drainage, chronic sinusitis, nasal polyps. We deal with throat issues. We do throat surgeries. We deal with head and neck cancers involving the airway and the neck.
In our department, we also have allergy and immunology with Dr. Hamalos, who we utilize quite regularly as allergy problems kind of intertwine with our ENT and sinus problems especially. Sleep apnea is contributing more to our practice than it had in the past as we recognize the significance of it. People with moderate to severe sleep apnea are definitely at increased risk of high blood pressure and heart attack, stroke, cardiac arrhythmias. It worsens diabetes. Oftentimes, we’ll prescribe CPAP machines for people and for a lot of people, it’s extremely successful. Sometimes it’s not as helpful as we want it to be, and then we have other options at our disposal.
We see people with hoarseness quite often, and occasionally we’ll see people who have growths on the vocal cords or even paralysis of the vocal cords. When people have vocal cord paralysis, we have new technology where we can inject the vocal cord to essentially beef it up, and that improves the hoarseness dramatically as well. You’re seeing people who have tonsil and base of tongue cancer more regularly. Often, it’s related to HPV virus exposure rather than just smoking, which has historically been the main risk factor for head and neck cancer. Luckily, it has an excellent prognosis and so we see this regularly where we can diagnose the cancer and provide treatment options.
A lot of people have thyroid nodules that are concerning or bothersome, and new technology that we use for that is a nerve monitoring system to help us monitor the nerves to the voice box and helps us reduce any potential nerve injuries so that we can provide that surgery at a safer level. It’s always important to us that when people leave our office, they understand their diagnosis. We try to explain it in layman’s terms so that they can explain it to their relatives when they get home. We want to give as much information as we can to people so that they can make an informed decision. That way people can be part of the process.
Nasal Obstruction and Drainage