I have written before about how our healthcare system tends to reward bad choices: too much medicine, too many procedures, not enough benefit. Now there is some indication that a simple solution might help solve this problem: giving patients better information to let them decide themselves. An Atlantic article recently covered the hot topic of … Continue reading Patients Make the Best Decisions
View More >>As a Los Angeles ENT and sinus surgeon, I get a lot of questions about vitamin supplements. Maybe it goes with the territory: LA is an urbane, educated and affluent city, and Angelenos (like most people) just want to know the best way to stay healthy. I have covered Vitamin C in this space before, … Continue reading Another Vitamin Bites the Dust
View More >>I field a great many questions about balloon sinuplasty, the revolutionary procedure that offers quick and lasting relief for sinus infections and sinusitis. I do my level best to explain this procedure using words and gestures, but there is nothing quite as effective as a video for elucidating 3D surgical concepts. My latest site hosts … Continue reading Balloon Sinuplasty Meets the Moving Image
View More >>Another week has brought another news story about drug-resistant bacteria. This time, the culprit is Klebsiella pneumoniae, or KPC, a nasty little pathogen that has so far eluded most attempts to control or kill it. What makes this latest news especially disquieting is the setting: The NIH announced that KPC has so far killed seven … Continue reading The Superbug that Beat the NIH
View More >>Hello all: a quick update this week on some changes here at LASinus.com. Look around the site and you will notice that I have streamlined much of the design and colors. I made these changes to help my patients more easily find what they need, read what they’re interested in, and distinguish this site from … Continue reading New Look, Same Site
View More >>Some of you may have seen this recent New York Times article about sleep issues and race. Its conclusions echo a number of widely cited studies that found that the quality and duration of sleep for blacks, Asians and Latinos lags far behind those of whites in the same cities. Although the author gamely tries … Continue reading Is Race a Risk Factor for Sleep Apnea?
View More >>Why do we sneeze? Various explanations have found their way into public consciousness over the years, but the most popular remains the most plausible: we sneeze to clear our noses. Something gets in there, be it a pollutant or a particulate, and the sneeze is our body’s resounding retort. But now researchers have discovered a … Continue reading Sneezing Study Unlocks a New Avenue for Sinusitis Treatment
View More >>Microflora is the term we use for the tiny organisms that live in our bodies. Think gut bacteria, tiny skin crawlers, anti-inflammatory fungi. It’s no secret that our bodies play host to millions of these creatures on a daily basis, but less well understood is what function, if any, these little passengers might serve. Now … Continue reading Are There Good Bacteria for your Sinuses?
View More >>I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the six-year-old boy who recently underwent surgery to remove a Lego wheel from his nose. Not so strange, you say? Well, here’s the kicker: the Lego in question had been there for three years. Details on the origin of this accident are a bit hard … Continue reading Is This the Craziest Sinus Story Ever?
View More >>I have written before about the debate on nasal steroids, and whether they work as described or not. (They do, but only a little.) Now a new study has come out comparing oral steroids, also known as systemic steroids, to a placebo. And guess what? The researchers, who published their findings in the Canadian Medical … Continue reading Another New Steroid Study
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