Your ears, nose, and throat are all tightly connected, and if something is affecting any particular part of that region, everything suffers. Experiencing a painful episode of sinus congestion is no fun for anyone, and when sinus pressure causes pain, your ears can also be affected, causing dizziness and a sensation that makes your ears feel muffled or clogged.
Fortunately, our McAllen ENT, Dr. Frank R. Glatz, and his team of sinus relief specialists at the Glatz Group know of several tips that you can do at home for relief. Should your ear congestion progress into pain or come with a fever, however, it is best to come and see us for treatment.
When your Eustachian tube is blocked or stops functioning properly, it can trap fluids within the middle ear. When the Eustachian tube gets clogged, you may feel pressure in your ear, muffling your hearing and causing ear pain. Eventually, this could turn into a painful ear infection.
Any condition that affects your sinuses can cause ear congestion, including:
Ear congestion symptoms can also be caused by other issues in your middle ear or the ear canal that affects the eardrum--also referred to as the tympanic membrane. If you have experienced symptoms and need relief, visit our office today.
There are different appropriate remedies depending on what the cause is. When it has to do with sinus-related problems like the common cold, flu, allergies, sinusitis, or irritants (e.g. tobacco smoke), here are a few things you can do to treat it:
With regards to fluid buildup, an afternoon of fun and sun at the pool or a quick shower can get water inside your ear, causing your ear to be congested. Try these methods to release the water from your ear:
From an overall perspective, the ear is quite a fascinating part of our body. Glands within the ear canal produce earwax, called cerumen, that ultimately protects, lubricates, and self-cleans the area. Normally, chewing and other typical jaw motions shift the earwax out of the ear, where it dries and flakes off, but sometimes, when we try to clean out the earwax by sticking a q tip in our ear, it can create a blockage, causing symptoms of ear congestion. Some simple solutions to get rid of wax buildup from your ears would include:
As for when you are traveling, you can avoid or alleviate airplane ear congestion (caused by air pressure) by chewing gum or hard candy, swallowing, or yawning during takeoff and landing.
If you think there may be a foreign object stuck in your ear canal, however, don’t try to take it out by yourself. Either see your ENT doctor in McAllen immediately or go to urgent care somewhere nearby.
Ear congestion is not uncommon and can often be efficiently resolved at home with the help of home remedies or over-the-counter treatments.
Should your ear congestion last more than two weeks or be followed by a fever, fluid drainage, loss of hearing, balance issues, or severe ear pain, come pay a visit to your local McAllen ENT that we can guarantee you’ll be ‘Glatz’ to see--and hear once your problem is resolved.
Seasonal allergens throughout the United States usually taper off during the winter months, but in Texas, the opposite is true. In fact, McAllen was ranked the worst city in the U.S. because of allergens in 2018, causing individuals that live here to suffer from chronic sinusitis.
You may have a hard time breathing through your nose, and the area around your eyes may feel swollen or tender. Before trying to google and self-diagnose you or your loved one’s symptoms, however, let our McAllen ENT, Dr. Frank R. Glatz, and his team of sinus relief specialists at the Glatz Group give you the run-down on what chronic sinusitis is, and how it affects you.
Chronic sinusitis occurs when the spaces inside your nose and head--called your sinuses--swell up and are inflamed for three months or longer. This common inflammatory condition prevents mucus from draining properly, thus making your nasal passages congested. In fact, several different causes can attribute to the development of chronic sinusitis, such as:
Be on the lookout for any the following symptoms if you suspect you are currently suffering from chronic sinusitis:
The aforementioned symptoms are not the only key factors to consider during a diagnosis. Other signs and symptoms to consider include:
Chronic sinusitis is often confused with acute sinusitis, as they have similar signs and symptoms. An easy way to distinguish between the two is to remember that acute sinusitis is a temporary infection of the sinuses usually associated with a cold, while the signs and symptoms of chronic sinusitis last at least 12 weeks.
Though you may face several episodes of acute sinusitis before developing chronic sinusitis, fever isn't a common sign of chronic sinusitis. You may get one with acute sinusitis.
If any of these symptoms hit close to home for you or your loved one, you’re probably wondering what the next step to take is. Before our trusted ENT can recommend treatment for your condition, he needs to run a diagnosis along with a number of tests that examine your nose with a small, nasal endoscope that lets him look for mechanical obstruction, redness, swelling, and sinus drainage.
If you or your loved one have tried using antibiotics and found them to be ineffective, you may need to consider treatment. Steroids can be more helpful when it comes to treating chronic sinusitis, as they reduce the swelling that leads to nasal and sinus blockage. Nevertheless, many patients require a more effective solution that provides longer-lasting relief. That is where we come in.
Balloon sinuplasty technology is used to treat chronic sinusitis, especially for patients whose symptoms were not resolved with medication. Not only is it a minimally-invasive treatment option, but it also can be performed by our very own McAllen ENT, Dr. Glatz, right in our office.
Chronic sinusitis doesn’t just affect your nasal function; it compromises your quality of life. Most patients are able to go back to their daily lives within 24 hours after the treatment, making balloon sinuplasty a popular choice for sinus relief.
When you or a loved one’s allergies are all out of whack, you can’t help but search for solutions to help resolve your sinus situation.
However, if you happen to be one of the 30 million Americans that suffer from chronic sinusitis, it can be a challenge knowing who you should turn to. It is critical that you choose the right doctor to help you deal with your situation; one that is comfortable with and fully capable of performing the procedure known as balloon sinuplasty.
Let McAllen ENT, Dr. Frank R. Glatz, and his team of sinus relief specialists at the Glatz Group provide you with some insight on how to choose the right sinuplasty doctor, and why you can expect nothing short of the ‘Glatz Guarantee’ from us!
The first step we recommend you take before making any decision on a doctor is gathering as much information as possible about the procedure. While your doctor should provide detailed information about the treatment, it never hurts to do a little bit of investigation yourself so that you can ask questions or raise any concerns during your consultation.
A generally safe operation, balloon sinuplasty is meant to reshape the blocked sinus openings in your nasal cavity with a small medical balloon. This helps to open up the sinus cavities without having to remove any bone or tissue, ultimately making for a safer procedure.
An ENT doctor makes this happen by using a tube-like contraption that inflates a small balloon inside one, several, or all sinus cavities, thus helping to optimize their drainage function.
The balloon sinuplasty procedure can provide long-term relief compared to traditional nasal surgeries. Click here to learn more about the benefits of balloon sinuplasty and how it compares to traditional nasal surgery.
When it comes to finding the right balloon sinuplasty surgeon, you want to evaluate 3 things:
Board certification is one of the most imperative factors to consider when you’re in the process of picking an ENT. It indicates that the doctor has the necessary training, skills, and experience to offer healthcare in otolaryngology.
In terms of experience for balloon sinuplasty, experience matters when you’re looking to prevent or treat a health condition such as chronic sinusitis. The more experience an ENT has treating a condition or performing a procedure, the higher the chance that everything will go exactly as it should.
It’s important to ask if your surgeon has done the fellowship training related to your diagnosis.
Dr. Glatz brings 20 years worth of experience to the Valley Ear, Nose, and Throat team and was among the first ENT’s to utilize cutting-edge technology when performing balloon sinuplasty and has successfully performed countless procedures.
As for patient care and experience, review patient satisfaction surveys to read what people have experienced in terms of the ease of scheduling an appointment, wait times, office environment, and the office staff’s amicability.
Our McAllen ENT has the experience, skillset, and reliable staff to deliver an outstanding patient experience, while providing outstanding care for individuals of all ages.
Schedule an appointment with the McAllen ENT at the Glatz Group today to see if you’re an eligible candidate for balloon sinuplasty and the Glatz Guarantee! If eligible, this procedure can be safely administered by our ENT doctors in our very own office.
If you’ve been suffering from a constant runny nose, nasal congestion, and drainage running down your throat, then you may have a condition known as chronic rhinitis--a condition caused by nerves that are out of balance and sending too many signals to your nose.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 12 million Americans suffer from allergic rhinitis, which is the inflammation of the nasal mucosa that could be causing your unwanted symptoms. The solution, however, is crystal clear. It is ClariFix.
Today, your friendly neighborhood McAllen ENT, Dr. Frank R. Glatz, and his sinus relief team at the Glatz Group are looking forward to exploring what this innovative treatment is with you, including how it works and how it is beneficial to your breathing.
This clinically-proven, minimally invasive cryotherapy treatment--i.e. localized freezing--goes after the source of your symptoms for guaranteed relief through the use of a cooling probe that freezes a small, inflamed region located in the back of your nose.
As the cold temperature reaches the out-of-balance nerves, the nerve signal pathways become temporarily blocked, making them unable to signal the nose to drip, run, or swell excessively. Freezing this tissue will relieve the inflammation and pain as a result.
This is a promising option for those who suffer through year-round allergies and found traditional treatments like allergy medications and allergy shots, or immunotherapy, to be unsuccessful.
Not only is the procedure safe and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but it can also be performed right in our very own office. The discomfort is kept to a minimum where only topical or local anesthesia is required.
You might sense a slight pressure along with a cooling sensation in your nose and likely around your molars. It may cause some discomfort, but patients haven’t described it as a painful experience.
Its recovery and down time is also fairly minimal, and may give you long-lasting relief as it typically does for 4 out of 5 patients, according to ClariFix’s website. It generally takes between two to six weeks post-treatment to notice the changes.
It is worth noting that ClariFix is mainly for symptom management. Allergies come from your immune system, and the treatment doesn’t change the way your immune system functions. It will not make your allergies, or a simple cold, go away for good.
To find out if the ClariFix is right for you, don’t hesitate to speak with our McAllen sinus relief specialists here at the Glatz Group to see if it can alleviate your symptoms.
The treatment is not recommended for those who have specific health conditions like cryoglobulinemia, paroxysmal cold hemoglobinuria, cold urticaria, Raynaud’s disease, and any open and/or infected wounds, as well as other skin conditions at or close to the tissue area that the procedure targets.
If you or a loved one also happen to have diabetes, sensitivity to cold temperatures, neuropathic disorders, bleeding disorders, or impaired peripheral circulation in the region that requires treatment, it is well-advised that you proceed with utmost caution.
To see if you are eligible for the cool treatment with ClariFix Cryotherapy, schedule a consultation with Dr. Frank R Glatz today!
