Dr. Chang Makes Front Page News in Local Newspaper with Practice Merger

On January 31, 2014, Dr. Chang made front page news of the Fauquier Times local newspaper with his planned practice merger with Blue Ridge Orthopaedics and Spine Center to become part of the Greater Piedmont Medical Association. With this merger, he will be also joining Dominion Internal Medicine (Drs. Robert Lin and Michael & Jennifer Ackerman) as well as Urological Associates of the Piedmont (Dr. Pfeffer). In spite of this merger, the practice name, addres, location, staff, phone number, etc will all still remain the exactly same.

Read the article here!

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New Movie Trailer for Fauquier ENT YouTube

It has been an amazing experience with how successful our videos have been on YouTube. We now have 60+ different videos of ENT procedures that has been viewed over 247 million times since 2007. We also now have over 12,300 subscribers to our video channel.

To celebrate, a movie trailer of sorts has been created to introduce new viewers to the sort of videos they will see and will continue to see from us.

Check it out! And... if you haven't yet subscribed to our video channel, please do so!

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Dr. Chang Featured in Regional Newspaper Regarding Balloon Sinuplasty

Dr. Chang was recently featured inside a regional quarterly newspaper regarding balloon sinuplasty in the treatment of chronic sinusitis.

Sinus surgery has come a long way compared to even just 5-10 years ago and great patient experiences after this type of surgery is not uncommon now.

A few key features of sinus surgery of the 21st century that is provided at Fauquier ENT include:

• Nasal packing rarely occurs

• Most patients are surprised by how little pain there is

• No facial swelling or bruising... your best friend won't be able to tell you just had sinus surgery

• Fast recovery

• No incisions on the face or in the mouth

• GPS-like image guidance to make sinus surgery even safer is available
• In select patients, can even be performed in the office without sedation using local anesthesia only

Balloon sinuplasty is a relatively new innovation that allows sinus surgery to even be performed even more comfortably in the office without any sedation (not all patients are candidates).

Such advanced sinus surgery techniques have been available at Fauquier ENT since 2005.

Read more about sinus surgery and balloon sinuplasty.

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Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Congenital Hearing Loss

In a potentially revolutionary treatment, a two years old toddler born deaf has had her hearing restored after receiving stem cells from her banked umbilical cord blood. (Reported in ABC News)

Madeline Connor at age 1 year old was completely deaf in the right ear and had severe hearing loss on the left. Normally hearing aids or cochlear implant would have been the only options.

However, in January 2012 at the age of 2 years old, Madeline underwent a "simple" experiment whereby stem cells were infused into her damaged inner ear. The stem cells were derived from umbilical cord blood that was banked at the time of her delivery at the Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

Over the next 6 months, there has been dramatic improvement in her hearing. She is also now talking for the first time.

Madeline also is not the only child who has undergone this revolutionary stem cell treatment. Apparently, there are ten other children who are being followed after undergoing similar stem cell infusion derived from banked cord blood.

It must be stressed that though Madeline's progress is quite amazing, it is still too early to say if this is a "bona fide" treatment for congenital hearing loss.

• Will the improvement continue and more importantly, last over years to decades?
• Will it work for other children?
• What is the expected hearing improvement with stem cell infusion?
• Will it treat ALL forms of nerve-damaged hearing loss?
• Does it have to be stem cells derived from cord blood or are stem cells derived from other sources possible (i.e., skin)?
• Can adults with non-congential hearing loss also benefit?

I eagerly await the outcome of this FDA approved trial which hopefully will be published at some point in the near future.

I also eagerly await the protocol used to obtain and infuse the stem cells. I suspect the infusion of stem cells is similar to that done when steroids are infused into the ear for sudden hearing loss as shown in this video below. However, this is just a guess of mine.

Source:

Cord Blood Stem Cells Restore Toddler's Hearing. ABC News 7/11/12

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Katie Couric Gets a Hearing Test

On July 10, 2012, Katie Couric reported on a personal story during which she obtained a hearing test.

In a modern society like the United States, there are many sources for hearing loss with our alarms, lawn-mowers, and loud music.

As the article correctly pointed out, damage due to loud noises is due to two factors: loudness and duration.

The louder something is, the shorter time of exposure before hearing damage can occur. The quieter something is, the longer a person can listen before suffering noise-induced hearing loss.

Otherwise, hearing aids may be in your future... even if you are in your 20s or 30s!

Source:
Am I Going Deaf? Yahoo News 7/10/12

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Phone App That Measures How Loudly You Listen to Your Music!

There are plenty of sound meters in the market for iPhone and Android smartphones that tell a user how  loud the surrounding noise is. Many of these apps are free.

However, rather than recording the loudness of the surrounding environment, there is now a new phone app called Safe and Sound (only for Android phones) that measures the decibel level of the sound emitted from headphones and gives the user a clear indication of how loud their music really is. Furthermore, it also records the user's listening history and alerts them when they are close to their daily recommended dose of noise exposure.

It is free as well!

Listening to loud music has become an increasing concern as hearing loss is being seen at earlier and earlier ages with increasing need for hearing aids. Complaints of tinnitus is also present.

Download the app here.

Developer website.

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Hearing Loss Reversed by Teeth

When a patient is totally deaf in just one ear (normal hearing on the other side), there are only a few options to help.

• BAHA - Bone Anchored Hearing Aid
• CROS Hearing Aid - Stands for Contralateral Routing Of Signals.

With BAHA, it does require surgery given the hearing aid is literally mounted on a post that is directly drilled into the skull on the deaf ear side. Total cost about $10,000.

With CROS, two hearing aids are required; one on the deaf hear which picks up sound, and another on the good ear where the sound is transmitted to. Total cost about $2,500.

Well, for many folks, having surgery is not palatable and wearing two hearing aids when one ear is perfectly good is also not acceptable.

There's now a third option called SoundBite (cost about $6,800).

With SoundBite, a hearing aid is placed in the deaf ear to pick up sound which is than wirelessly transmitted to a mini-retainer like device placed around the back molars. This special retainer vibrates the teeth which in turn vibrates the skull which sends sound waves to the good ear allowing a patient to hear.

And preliminary results show that patients like it the best among the three options.

However, nothing is all good...

The disadvantage with the SoundBite is battery life. The ear piece battery only lasts about 12-15 hours and the teeth retainer piece about 8 hours. Also, the teeth retainer needs to be fitted by a dentist.

Also, not everybody is a candidate for SoundBite. In order to quality, a patient must have:

1) Good teeth and gums
2) Deaf in only one side with normal hearing on the other. A comprehensive hearing test is required obviously.

Source:

Using Teeth to Help Restore Hearing in One Ear. WSJ 7/10/12

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Hearing Aid Styles and Colors - There Are Many!

It is not uncommon that a patient with hearing loss interested in hearing aids mistakenly believe there's only TWO hearing aid styles.

The kind that goes in the ear and the kind that goes behind the ear.

Although that is true, there are more different variations of both types that catches many people by surprise.

Image taken from NIH

There also seems to be a generational gap in what style is preferred by patients.

"Older" folks in their 60's or older prefer the styles that go in the ear, mostly because of the stigma associated with hearing loss and use of a hearing aid that reinforces and reminds them of their age. Also, because they remember the large skin-toned BTE that used to be the only option.

The "younger" generation typically prefer the min-BTE that go behind the ear. It probably helps that so many people use wireless bluetooth earpieces almost like a status symbol.

Beyond where hearing aids go, they now come in different colors and patterns for further personalization! Skin-tone is no longer the only color option.

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Dr. Chang on Front-Page News

Dr. Chris Chang made the front page news of today's newspaper Fauquier Times-Democrat for his social media efforts. Click on the image to enlarge the article.

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Fauquier ENT Reaches 5 Million Web Visits

It is with some amazement that a certain milestone was reached this past week...

Fauquier ENT's online presence received over 5,000,000 web visits since first coming into existence in 2004. This number includes practice website and blog.

There has been exponential growth year over year with daily web visits now averaging close to 8,000 hits per day with some occasional peak days exceeding 10,000 views.

Our YouTube channel has done even better on its own with over a QUARTER BILLION VIEWS since we first established it in 2007. As of today, our videos have collectively received over 228 million views, averaging 45,000 views per day.

Thanks for all the online support!

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Magic Ears Club Founded by Fauquier ENT Hosts Halloween Party

The Magic Ears Club kicked off its existence with a first ever Halloween Party on October 29, 2011 where over 15 kids from elementary to high school ages who wear hearing aids co-mingled and played games while their parents talked amongst each other their experiences. Prizes and free hearing aid goodies were also distributed.

Dr. Catie Chalmers, audiologist with Fauquier ENT who founded the Magic Ears Club, stated that the purpose of the club is to help parents, as well as their hard-of-hearing children, connect, share, and provide support for each other.

Being a member of this unique club means being able to participate in practice-sponsored parties as well as meeting new friends who also have "magic ears" (aka, hearing aids).

Furthermore, members can participate over the internet in either open or closed forums hosted by Fauquier ENT where members can ask questions or provide other meaningful support to each other wherever and whenever they wish.

The open forum is through Facebook which is open to all who support our goals whereas the closed forum is hosted through Yahoo Groups and limited to ONLY those individuals who are patients of Fauquier ENT.

For more information, go to http://www.MagicEarsClub.com

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