Ear, Nose & Throat

If you suffer from chronic earaches, ear infections, ringing in the ears or hearing loss, ENT specialists can diagnose the cause and find the correct surgical or non-surgical treatment option for you.

Services:

• Ear tube placement and removal – A small tube creates a clear pathway in your ear canal that allows trapped fluids to drain out, helping reduce ear infections and earaches.
• Eustachian tube dilation – Your Eustachian tubes connect your throat to your middle ear and help prevent air pressure and fluid from building up inside your ear. If the tube gets plugged, this is called
• Eustachian tube dysfunction, and can lead to ear pain and cause sounds to be muffled. With this minimally invasive procedure, our specialist uses a catheter to insert a small balloon through the nose and into the tube. Once inflated, the balloon opens a pathway for mucus and air to flow.
• Audiology – With comprehensive hearing evaluations, our audiologist brings expertise to the diagnosis and treatment of hearing, balance and other auditory disorders. Audiology examinations can be vital when diagnosing ENT issues.

Nasal congestion, runny nose and sinus infections can be disruptive to your life, and there are many possible causes. In addition to allergies (see below), there could be issues with your septum, your sinuses or your turbinates – little structures in your nose that humidify and cleanse the air you breath. Our experts know how to identify the issue and create a treatment plan for you.

Surgical Options:

• Balloon sinuplasty – In cases of severe rhinosinusitis, sinus inflammation and nose blockage, we can use a catheter to insert a small balloon into the sinuses with no surgical incisions needed. The balloon is inflated to drain the sinuses.
• Septoplasty – The septum is the wall of bone and cartilage that divides your nostrils. A deviated septum is when the septum gets displaced, blocking off one side of your nose and causing difficulty breathing in severe cases. This surgical procedure returns the septum to its proper positioning.
• Turbinate reduction – Your turbinates can become inflamed by allergies, irritation or infection, causing nasal obstruction and congestion. A quick in-office procedure that takes about 10 minutes can reduce the size of the turbinates and improve air flow, making breathing easier.
• Other sinus procedures – There are more surgical options for chronic sinusitis and nasal polyps.

Sore throat, tonsil infections, hoarseness, chronic cough – these don’t need to be things you have to endure. If these things are regular occurrences, the ENT specialists at OSF HealthCare can help. 

Surgical Options:

• Biopsies, including vocal cords – Your specialist may remove a small piece of tissue from a trouble area to analyze and diagnose your condition.
• Frenotomy/frenectomy – In cases of tongue-tie, the piece of tissue, called the frenulum, that connects the bottom of your tongue to the floor of your mouth is too short and limits the movement of the tongue. A specialist can make a simple cut in the frenulum or remove it entirely to allow the tongue more freedom of movement
• Tonsillectomy – Removal of the tonsils can be a method used to treat chronic tonsillitis or breathing-related sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea.
• Adenoidectomy – Your adenoids are masses of tissue behind your nasal passages. When inflamed or enlarged, they can disrupt the Eustachian tubes, leading to ear infections, or interfere with breathing, leading to sleep disorders. The adenoids can be surgically removed if either of these symptoms are chronic or problematic.

A lot of ear, nose and throat symptoms are the results of your body’s response to allergens. Long-term relief of these symptoms requires treatment of your allergies. We conduct allergy testing to identify the cause of the symptoms. Then we can treat the allergies with immunotherapy, with the goal of avoiding surgical treatment when possible

Options (available only at Ottawa location):

• Skin test
• Blood test
• Subcutaneous immunotherapy (allergy shots)
• Sublingual immunotherapy (allergy drops)