Throat Ache: Treatment, Procedure, Cost and Side Effects

What is a foreign body (FB)?
Foreign body or FB is an object or piece of extraneous matter that has entered the body by accident or design. It is common to see certain items getting stuck in the ear, nose or throat especially, in young children. While most of the time they do not raise an alarm, however, sometimes they can lead to severe consequences like rupture of the eardrum or even choking.

How do FBs affect ear, nose and throat?

• Children over 9 months develop an ability to pick up objects. As they explore the environment around them, they tend to put items such as peas, beans, marbles, beads, cotton, paper, etc, in their mouth, nose or ears. A similar trend can be seen in adults with mental disorders.
• Trauma/ fall/accident can force FBs like rock, pebbles into the ear, nose or throat.
• Adults while riding a bike or sleeping on the ground (campsites) can have insects: flies, ants, roaches fly into the nose or ear.
• Choking occurs when FBs block the airway, common reasons are: not chewing the food properly, diseases like Parkinsonism, drinking alcohol or certain drugs that slowdowns the process of swallowing.

Managing FB in the ear, nose and throat

Foreign bodies in the ear
Symptoms: Pain in the ear, discharge or bleeding from the ear, feeling of fullness or pressure in the ear and dizziness and nausea in extreme cases.

Management:

• Make sure the patient is sitting in an upright position, pull the pinna or outer semicircle of the ear towards the back. This can help you see the object clearly and also loosen it to wiggle out. If you can see the object clearly, use a tweezer to grasp the object and gently remove.
• In case a live insect gets trapped inside the ear lie down and place few drops of warm vegetable or baby oil. Use oil only if symptoms of eardrum perforation like pain, bleeding/discharge from the ear is absent.
• Tilting the head to the affected side can facilitate gravity to dislodge the object.

Foreign bodies in the nose:
Symptoms: Pain and difficulty in breathing from that side of the nose.
Management: Keep the uninvolved nostril closed by pressing a finger against the side of the nose and gently ask the person to blow from the affected nostril.

Foreign bodies in the throat:
Symptoms: Choking, inability to breathe and speak 
Management: Perform Heimlich maneuver: abdominal thrusts, if trained otherwise, it is advised to call for medical help immediately.

How can you prevent foreign bodies from entering your ear, nose, throat?

• Discourage talking, playing, laughing when food is in the mouth.
• Do not give whole grapes, popcorn, nuts to children below 3 years.
• Keep small objects out of reach of small children.
• Teach children to avoid placing objects into their nose, ears.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Swallowing food comes naturally to human beings. But when there is a problem, it is usually called Dysphagia. Esophagus, a muscular tube-like organ located at the back of our throat, usually helps in swallowing food and transferring them to our stomach. When esophagus does not function properly, dysphagia happens. Patients suffering from brain or nerve disorder, seniors and babies might have this problem.

People with dysphagia might witness the following issues:

• Difficulty in swallowing solids and liquids.
• Gaging, choking or coughing usually occurs when trying to swallow.
• Experience pain when trying to swallow and also heartburn.
• Swallowed food might come back up either through mouth or nose.
• A chronic problem might result in weight loss.

Causes:
There are 2 main reasons, why the Esophagus might become dysfunctional.

1. Due to some medical condition the muscles and nerves that help the esophagus work have stopped working.
2. The esophagus is blocked by something.

There can be a number of reasons for both the condition. Here are the reasons why the muscles and nerves might not work.
Certain diseases can create problems with your nervous system, which in turn can affect the esophagus. These diseases are polio, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, Parkinson’s disease.

1. A brain stroke, spinal cord injury or brain injury can also affect swallowing.
2. Polymyositis or Dermatomyositis are immune system problems that can cause swelling or weakness.
3. The muscles of esophagus suddenly squeeze, which is called esophagus spasm.
4. Scleroderma causes the esophagus to become thin and weak.

The esophagus might be blocked because of these reasons:

1. Esophagus might have malignant or non-malignant tumours.
2. Esophagitis is a medical condition when the esophagus is infected, got some allergy or even if a pill got stuck on it.
3. People suffering from reflux diseases often experience the acid that backs up into the esophagus. This can cause an ulcer on it resulting in scars. Scars make Esophagus narrower, making it difficult to swallow.
4. There are small sacs called Diverticula on the esophagus or the throat, often making it difficult to swallow.
5. Lymph nodes, tumours, bone spurs can also obstruct esophagus and create difficulty in swallowing. If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult an ENT specialist.

Tonsils are the two oval-shaped tissue pads at the back of your throat, which function as a mechanism to protect you from diseases. Any infection of the tonsils is referred to as ‘tonsillitis’.

You can suffer from tonsillitis at any age, but it is more commonly diagnosed in children. Tonsillitis is highly contagious.

There are two types of tonsillitis:

1. Chronic tonsillitis— Longer episodes of acute tonsillitis
2. Recurrent tonsillitis— Recurrent episodes of tonsillitis in a year

Causes

Tonsillitis can cause viral and bacterial infections. The ‘Streptococcus (strep) bacteria’ is a common cause. Some other causes include:

1. Adenoviruses
2. Influenza virus
3. Epstein-Barr virus
4. Parainfluenza virus
5. Enteroviruses
6. Herpes simplex virus

Symptoms

Since tonsillitis has various causes, symptoms too tend to differ. Some symptoms include:

1. An extremely sore throat
2. Painful or difficult swallowing
3. Scratchy-sounding voice
4. Bad breath
5. Fever
6. Chills
7. Earaches
8. Stomach aches
9. Headaches
10. Stiff neck
11. Neck and jaw tenderness due to inflamed lymph nodes
12. Tonsils that become swollen and red in colour
13. Yellow or white spots on the tonsils

In children, symptoms such as excessive drooling, increased irritability or poor appetite are usually noticeable.

Treatment

If the tonsillitis is mild, especially caused by a virus, it usually doesn’t require any treatment. More critical cases of tonsillitis might require treatments such as tonsillectomy (a surgical process used to remove the tonsils) or administration of antibiotics.

Penicillin is the most commonly administered antibiotic. Once commonly performed, tonsillectomy (surgical removal of tonsils) is now reserved for extremely critical cases. If you wish to discuss any specific problem, you can consult an ent-specialist.

Women, who have been thinking that cardiac diseases are something that doesn’t need much attention, then you have tragically mistaken. As a matter of fact, these are the diseases which most women aren’t too aware of. However, it is affecting a lot of women all over the world. The most common issue in cardiology, particularly among women is a heart attack. The first thing that we should know is that Cardiovascular diseases like  heart attack are killing as many women as men.

Almost more than 25,000 women are dying all over India every year from a heart attack or other coronary heart diseases. The ratio results show that women are suffering from heart attack three times more than that of breast cancer. The main reason that creates this higher toll is that the disease may be different in women. However, in the case of men, it stays more localised. In the case of women, the disease is diffused and spread out, but it can be treated. 

You cannot seek immunity only through pills:
We should be aware of the fact that pills will help you to curb the chance of having a heart attack, but again doctors claim that the risk does hike quite significantly after the menopause in women. The pills in such case can create various side effects and eventually trigger more cardiac diseases. The formation of clots in blood are created by different kinds of hormonal contraception, which is the main reason for a potential heart attack in women.

Heart attack symptoms in women:
We all know that the classic heart attack symptoms include severe pressure on the chest and extreme chest pain. However, these symptoms can be quite subtle in case of women. So, here we are listing down 4 of the most common symptoms of heart attack for women and those are:

1. Fatigue
2. Shortness of breath
3. Throat pain and jaw pain
4. Pain in arms may be in one or both

If you experience any one of these symptoms even, make sure that you go for a check immediately. Take quicker action as each minute that goes on during a heart attack is creating the death of a heart muscle.

Smoking doubles the risk of a heart attack in women
According to experts in cardiology, the most important fact that triggers a heart attack in women is smoking, which increases the blood pressure and causes the blood to pile up in your blood vessels, reducing the good HDL cholesterol which clots the blood and eventually results in a heart attack.

You must be wondering about the favourable chances of having a heart attack for women. The fifth and final thing to know about a heart attack is that women who are weighing thirty pounds or more have more chances of heart attack. If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult a cardiologist.

Rheumatic fever is a kind of autoimmune ailment that can occur as a result of group A streptococcal throat infection leading to inflammatory lesions in the connective tissues of the body. This disease specifically affects the joints, heart, blood vessels and various subcutaneous tissues located all over the body.

History of the effects of rheumatic fever:
The disease has been evaluated and depicted since the 1500s, though the connection between the rheumatic fever, and the throat infection was not found out until it was late 1880s. And the sore throat was also related to the rash, which is caused by streptococcal exotoxins, along with fever. Rheumatic fever was one of the leading causes of deaths in children as well as one of most common reasons behind the acquired heart diseases in adults before the invention and availability of penicillin.

Reasons behind the causes of rheumatic fever:
Even though adolescents and adults may be affected by the rheumatic fever, it mostly affects children aged between 5 to 15 years. It is a common disease in areas like South-Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and several parts of New Zealand and Australia. Group A streptococcus bacterium is the primary cause of this fever, and it also leads to scarlet fever in some people. It makes the body attack its own tissues once it has been attacked by the bacteria. This particular reaction leads to widespread inflammation throughout the body and forms the basis of all the common symptoms of the rheumatic fever.

You may have to take your child for the strep test if you notice any of the following symptoms:

1. A sore throat and red rashes all across or in certain parts of the body.
2. If your child has tender or swollen lymph nodes that are causing difficulty in swallowing.
3. Tonsils that are filled with pus or red and swollen.

Harmful impacts of the rheumatic fever:

Developed mostly due to strep throat infection, it can affect the heart, skin, joints and nervous system of children. Though it may not affect all who have gone through a strep throat infection, it can lead to long-term diseases of the heart and its valves and is termed as a rheumatic heart disease. Since each attack of rheumatic fever may cause further damage to the heart, it is very crucial to make sure that your child doesn’t have one more attack of the fever, and it is therefore, important to have regular doses of penicillin injections and consult a specialist for receiving further advice on treatments and prevention.