Effects of Tobacco

First two pictures are those of people who were chewing paan, now have cancer and difficulty in opening the mouth respectively. The picture on the bottom is a person who had been smoking for 30 years and now has cancer in his tongue, he lost his entire tongue in the process.

Tomorrow is the WHO "No Tobacco Day". There are lot of people who are not aware of the ill effects of tobacco, including smokeless tobacco like paan. Kindly take a look at these pictures and decide whether you want to continue using tobacco. Tobacco not only affects you, it also affects your near and dear ones. I have had children coming to me with ear complaints and all of them had one thing in common, their father was smoking at home!. The least you can do is to smoke in private away from your kids and away from a public place.

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"EAR BUDS" Are NOT For Your EARS

I had posted some months back about ear wax and what needs to be done. Unfortunately, I still get lots of patients who continue using ear buds and have caused damage to their ears and ear drum. I had a 3 year child whose parents had used ear buds and had made a hole in the ear drum!!!. I also had a patient who had ear bud track in his ear. Another disadvantage is prolonged ear bud use can narrow your ear canal.

The best way is removal under direct vision by a doctor and the doctor must have access to a microscope. Practically speaking, this generally requires yearly visits to see a specialist called an "otologist".

Irrigation or "syringing" is a standard method of wax removal. While this is a conventional and accepted method of ear wax removal, it has many disadvantages compared to removal under direct vision. It can perforate the ear drum and when there is a perforation, irrigation may force water and wax into the middle ear.

I recommend against using cotton tipped applicators (the so-called 'Q' TIPS and ear buds) as well as putting other things into your ear such as hair pins. This can be dangerous because you run the risk of perforating the ear drum, as well as jamming wax deeper inside.

After a long break

The last time I logged in as a blogger was last year. After this I learnt about blogging and its importance and wanted to do a second innings.