Who are ENT doctors, and what do they treat?
ENT stands for ear, nose, and throat. ENT doctors are also known as otolaryngologists. They specialize in diagnosing, treating, and managing conditions of the ear, nose, throat, and associated head and neck regions.
They complete an extensive education and training program, including a 4-year undergraduate degree, a 4-year medical degree, and a 5-year residency training under the guidance of an experienced ENT doctor. Some ENT doctors may specialize in pediatric otolaryngology, facial plastic & reconstructive surgery, or other otolaryngology divisions for 1-2 years.
They can begin medical practice once they pass the required exams to get their state medical license and board certification from the American Board of Otolaryngology. You may consult ENT doctors in hospitals or private clinics for medical or surgical management of the following:
- Ear conditions: They can affect your hearing and balance. Some include ear infections, tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo, earwax buildup, and eardrum perforation.
- Nose conditions: They can affect your breathing, smell, and appearance. Some common ones include sinusitis, nasal allergies or allergic rhinitis, nasal polyps, deviated septum, nosebleeds, nasal fractures, and smell disorders.
- Throat conditions: They can affect your swallowing, eating, breathing, and speaking. Some include tonsillitis, pharyngitis, laryngitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), swallowing disorders, vocal cord disorders, snoring and sleep apnea, salivary gland disorders, hoarseness, and throat infections.
- Head and neck conditions: Common ones include thyroid and parathyroid disorders, facial trauma, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, and laryngopharyngeal reflux.
What types of head and neck cancers does an ENT doctor treat?
Apart from the conditions mentioned earlier, ENT doctors can also treat head and neck cancers. Tobacco use is the most common cause of these cancers. It includes chewing tobacco, snuff, smoking cigarettes, cigars, and even secondhand smoke. Second on the list of risk factors is heavy alcohol consumption, followed by human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. The various types of head and neck cancers include:
- Oral cancer: It can develop anywhere in the mouth, including the tongue, mouth and gum tissues, and throat. Symptoms may consist of a white or red patch or lump on the inside of the mouth, non-healing ulcers, bad breath, pain in the mouth, ears, or face, and unusual bleeding in the mouth.
- Oropharyngeal cancer: It develops in the oropharynx, the middle area of the throat behind the mouth. Symptoms include trouble swallowing, chronic sore throat, throat or neck pain, unexplained weight loss, ear pain or ringing, trouble hearing, and a lump in the back of the neck, throat, or mouth.
- Laryngeal cancer: This cancer typically develops in the larynx or voice box in the neck. Symptoms may include a non-healing sore throat or cough, difficulty swallowing, ear pain, lump in the neck or throat, and trouble talking.
- Nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer: It develops in air-filled spaces in the skull and nose. Symptoms may include blocked sinuses, chronic sinus infections, frequent headaches or pain in sinuses, runny nose, nosebleeds, non-healing lumps or sores inside the nose, face, or roof of the mouth, and pain in upper teeth.
- Salivary gland cancer: It develops in the saliva-producing glands on the floor of the mouth, near the jawbone. Symptoms may include a lump in the cheek, jaw, or neck, difficulty swallowing, chronic facial pain, and facial weakness or numbness.
What are some common pediatric ENT conditions and their symptoms?
If your child suffers from ear, nose, and throat symptoms, you must immediately take them to your pediatrician. They would refer you to a pediatric ENT near you should the problem be serious. Here are five ENT conditions that can commonly affect your little one:
- Ear infections: When bacteria or viruses affect the middle ear behind the eardrum, it can lead to ear infections in children. Watch out for excessive crying, irritability, tugging ears, fever, mouth breathing, snoring, and refusing to feed.
- Glue ear: In this condition that often occurs after ear infections, fluid buildup in your child's middle ear causes temporary hearing loss. You can recognize it by different changes in your child, such as sleepiness, concentration troubles, not responding when you call them, asking you to repeat yourself, and speaking louder.
- Sinusitis: Sinusitis refers to the inflammation and irritation of the sinuses in the face around the nose. Symptoms include runny or stuffy nose, fever, bad breath, nausea, facial pain, and poor appetite.
- Tonsillitis: An inflammation of the tonsils at the back of the throat can lead to symptoms like sore throat, fever, bad breath, trouble swallowing, loss of appetite, tender lymph nodes, headache, and stomach ache.
- Sleep apnea: If your child has this sleep disorder, their breathing may get blocked several times during sleep. Common symptoms are snoring, restless sleep, choking, coughing, mouth breathing, bedwetting, and sleep terrors. Due to disturbed sleep, you may notice behavioral problems, lack of attention, and poor performance at school.
When should you see an ENT doctor?
Otolaryngologists can provide consultations and diagnose various ear, nose, and neck disorders. Here are a few reasons you should see an ear, nose, & throat doctor near you:
- Chronic ear infections: Ear infections occur in the air-filled space behind the eardrum and result from underlying illnesses such as allergies, flu, or colds. Kids aged six months to two years are more likely to get ear infections because their middle ears and eustachian tubes are smaller and shaped differently. Symptoms include fever, headache, impaired hearing, and loss of balance. Recurrent ear infections are a cause of concern, and you should consult an ENT immediately.
- Hearing loss: You can identify if you’re experiencing hearing loss if you feel like voices are mumbling or too soft or often turn up the volume on devices. There could be various causes of hearing loss ranging from buildup of earwax and ear infections to damage to the inner ear or ruptured eardrum. An ENT will evaluate your issue and collaborate with an audiologist to provide the necessary treatment.
- Dizziness or vertigo: People can feel dizzy or vertigo for a variety of reasons, such as migraines, medications, or standing up too quickly. Accordingly, vertigo can occur when calcium crystals in the inner ear get dislodged from their normal position. Hence, an ENT can help find the root cause and alleviate symptoms with a proper treatment plan.
- Ringing in the ears: Also known as tinnitus, people can hear ringing in the ears that can last more than five minutes and occurs more than once per week. It can be a harmful and bothersome experience that affects one’s quality of life. Although tinnitus has no perfect cure, ENTs can help alleviate the symptoms with various management strategies.
What to expect at an ENT appointment?
Your ENT doctor will begin the appointment by reviewing your medical history, including your health conditions, medications, surgeries, and current symptoms. Give them as much information as possible to help them achieve an accurate diagnosis.
After conversing with you, they will move on to conducting a complete physical examination of the affected parts using specialized instruments. Depending on your symptoms, they may also order hearing, allergy, or imaging tests to help diagnose the underlying condition.
After diagnosis, the ENT specialist will prepare an individualized treatment plan. Initially, they will suggest non-surgical options such as medications, lifestyle alterations, and therapies to treat your ENT condition. However, some conditions can only be treated using surgery, such as:
- Chronic sinusitis
- Obstructive sleep apnea
- Thyroid and parathyroid disorders
- Vocal cord disorders
- Certain middle ear problems
Top ten questions you should ask your ENT
Your ENT specialist will give you enough time to address your queries. They want to ensure you fully understand your situation and the management plan to deal with it. So, feel free to ask whatever you want and consider including the following questions in your list when visiting an ear, nose, & throat doctor near you:
- Have you treated more people with the same condition as me?
- What is the underlying cause of my symptoms?
- Is my condition hereditary?
- What is the long-term prognosis for this condition?
- What should I expect from my condition?
- Will my condition impact my health in other ways?
- What are my treatment options?
- Will I have to make any lifestyle changes during the treatment?
- What can I do to improve my condition?
- What will happen during the follow-up care?
Where can you find the best ENT near you in Woodbridge, NJ?
Your primary care doctor will primarily refer you to an ENT specialist if you have frequent ear infections, hearing difficulty, balance problems, ringing ears, chronic stuffy nose, or sore throat, among other symptoms. An ENT doctor can diagnose your condition and suggest a suitable treatment plan, eventually improving your quality of life.
But, if you are looking for an ear, nose, & throat doctor near you without a referral, Zocdoc can help you find the suitable one for your needs in minutes. On the website, go to the search bar and enter the required details, such as the specialty (ear, nose, and throat doctor), location (Woodbridge, NJ), availability, and insurance details. You can also update your Zocdoc account's insurance details or upload a picture of your health plan card on the Zocdoc app to get filtered results of providers who accept your insurance. Check out Zocdoc's patient help center for more insurance-related FAQs. When you click search, a list of in-network providers will appear, which you can narrow by applying various filters—consultation time, travel distance, and the provider's gender and language.
Zocdoc offers another crucial feature—provider profiles, that can further help you finalize an ENT doctor. You can review them to get relevant information about their education, training, board certifications, professional memberships, practice names, and hospital affiliations. You can also read verified patient feedback and FAQs about the provider.
Once you have compared different provider profiles and concluded your research, you can book your appointment with the chosen ENT near you. Booking with Zocdoc is easy, secure, and 100% free!
Key statistics on ENT conditions in New Jersey and the USA
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report, around 10.6% of adults aged 18+ had some degree of hearing loss in New Jersey between 2014-2016. Compared to other states, New Jersey had the lowest rate of hearing loss among adults. Another CDC report found that in 2020, about 4% of adults in the state had deafness or serious difficulty hearing.
Based on data from the American Cancer Society, between 2015 and 2019, there were about 11.4 cases per 100,000 population of oral cavity and pharynx cancer, while about 2.8 cases of larynx cancer per 100,000 population in New Jersey annually. Around 1.9 per 100,000 died from oral cavity and pharynx cancer, and 0.8 per 100,000 died from larynx cancer in the state every year between 2016 and 2020.
The American Cancer Society estimates around 1470 new oral cavity and pharynx cancer cases and 310 new larynx cancer cases in New Jersey in 2023. Approximately 230 individuals may die from oral cavity and pharynx cancer, and 90 from larynx cancer.
Around 11.2%, meaning 28,949 American adults, had sinusitis in 2018, as revealed in a CDC report. Around 13.3% or 17,867 females had sinusitis compared to about 9% or 11,082 males. Adults aged 65-74 and 45-64 were affected equally, with about 14.5% of cases from both age groups. Around 12.5% of sinusitis patients were 75 and older, while approximately 8.5% were between 18 and 44 years.
Sources
WebMD[1]
WebMD[2]
Everyday Health
National Cancer Institute
Collin County Ear Nose and Throat
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[1]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[2]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[3]
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[4]
American Cancer Society
Capital ENT & Sinus Center
National Allergy & ENT
Children's Wisconsin
Top Doctors UK
Cleveland Clinic[1]
Cleveland Clinic[2]
Nemours KidsHealth[1]
Nemours KidsHealth[2]
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic Health System
Touchwood Pharmacy
