Kathryn - Kathryn Goes to the ENT
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01:17 pm
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Kathryn Goes to the ENT
On Friday, when I wasn't getting any more better than I had been, I called my doctor for a referral to an ENT. I asked her to see if she could find someone who had some experience with singers, but stressed that it wasn't a big deal.
Well, she got me a referral to the guy who consults for the frickin Seattle Opera.. Seriously, multiple members of the Chorale had heard of this guy. Dr. Kenneth Faw. They managed to get me in today from a Friday afternoon call, which is pretty impressive, seeing as Monday is his surgery day -- basically a next day appointment, for all that it was four days later. Now, mind you, I am a LOT better today than I was on Friday, but I still have some soreness, so I kept the appointment.
He looked in my throat and basically said "Wow, there is a LOT of healing injury here. You clearly had a very profound event in your throat; this must have been agonizing. But it is healing really, really beautifully. I wouldn't do anything different than what you're doing." He also, to my amazement, confirmed that it was absolutely possible that the whole thing could have been viral, although he thinks an opportunistic bacterial infection is more likely given the timing of what happened after I got the Big Shot. But even if it was viral, he said, the antibiotics were a good idea; while it's typically bad practices to give antibiotics to prevent future infection (because the population impact is so negative in the form of drug-resistant bacteria), my tonsils are already so pitted and messed up and I depend on my throat so much that the risk/reward situation was inverted.
And he took any kind of surgery off the table. Apparently, for a working singer, it can be six months to a year of vocal rehab before you're back in voice, so he only recommends it when either your larger health is being badly threatened or if you are so ill you're looking at months off anyway.
He talked with me some about the black bits of my tonsils, and what happened when they came off and why and how that happens, too. Short form: it's a defense mechanism by the tonsils themselves. When the toxin levels from the necrosing tissue get high enough, your tonsils just. . . shed. Like a newt. And then that's why they hurt so fucking bad afterwards, because that was all raw wound. So what I'm supposed to do now is to get in the habit of irrigating my tonsils and the back of my throat with isotonic saline two to four times a day, and take probiotics for the next month or two to try and take some of the immune pressure off my tonsils.
So, anyway, hooray. I'm so glad I got in to see him. He said if it recurs, to call him first.
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![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/29212628/406765) | | From: | ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rmd |
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| Date: | April 29th, 2008 08:24 pm (UTC) |
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um. clever tonsils. (ew. that's impressively gross.)
otoh, hooray for finding a massively clueful ENT.
i'm just going to repeat this comment, because yes: impressively clever and gross, and yay! clueful doctor!
-bs
I'm so glad you went to see him, and that things are on the up-swing now.
Me too. I wish I could stop feeling guilty over these damned antibiotics tho!
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/64840875/440417) | | From: | jenk |
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| Date: | April 29th, 2008 11:36 pm (UTC) |
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Why do you feel guilty?
Because likely as not I didn't need them, and I'm contributing to the downfall of western civilization through drug-resistant disease?
'Cept that the doctor, a famous specialist, said that in your case you did need them.
(I could tell you that in my opinion as someone with a bachelor's degree in Biology I think you needed them, but my degree is 11 years out of date and was generalist anyway. Go with the expert physician's opinion.)
Wow, kudos to your doctor for referring you to him. That's great.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/44155650/1884612) | | From: | irihs |
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| Date: | April 29th, 2008 09:49 pm (UTC) |
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I don't know if I'm happy or sad that more parts of our body don't shed when necessary. icky ick ick
But it must be really nice to get validation from a doctor that you were in agonizing pain, and went through an ordeal. Glad it's getting better!
I love this doctor. A lot of "healing injury"
The chiropractic philosophy is pretty clear that the body knows what it's doing, and that it can take care of itself. A lot of what we take as a symptom and as a bad thing which we try to stifle, are actually the processes that the body goes through to try and heal.
I'm still young enough in practice that I don't always have the guts to tell people that with authority. It's awesome to see a medical doctor embracing that philosophy as well.
I'm so glad that you are doing so well and your body is healing nicely.
Yeah, he was very clear that what he does is try to manage the body's symptoms when they get too acute to be helpful. So, for example, when my tonsils were so huge I was having apnea problems, then anti-inflammatories are a good idea, because a tip-top immune response doesn't matter if you're, you know, dead from the not breathing.
But the singing voice is such a delicate thing that you need to be really, really conservative with treatment, I guess. He was very open about that, that for such a delicate system a lot of what he does is "try not to do more harm than good."
He sounds like a fantastic doctor. Just having your pain validated like that is great.
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/17836222/253582) | | From: | liralen |
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| Date: | April 30th, 2008 02:21 am (UTC) |
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Wow! How very, very cool that he could see you!! Sounds like some excellent advice and thought.
1) Yay for finding the right doc on the first try!
2) You do know that "more better" is Black for sex, right?
Like everyone else says, it really blows that you had to deal with this! But it's way cool that you found a doctor who could explain everything.
One of the reasons I love to watch the practice of medicine is because smart docs like Dr. Faw. It's so cool to see how our bodies work, and I think it's pretty neat when a doctor takes the time to explain that.
I hope you feel tip-top really soon.
| From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2008 03:12 am (UTC) |
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| | finslippy post | (Link) |
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This has nothing to do with tonsils, though I do hope you are feeling better! I just wanted to say, as another woman who has been thru what Alice is going thru now, I really appreciated what you offered up. Even having tho that is years behind me now and a beautiful 4 year old is doing an art project in the LR as I type, your remark still resonates. Thank you...
allison
| | From: | kathrynt |
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| Date: | May 1st, 2008 08:19 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: finslippy post | (Link) |
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Oh, I'm so glad. I've found that idea to be such a healing one -- I don't mean at all to diminish the pain of a miscarriage or to imply that one shouldn't grieve because it was all for the best, or anything like that, but it's just so nice to think that maybe someone got a happy ending out of such a bucket of grief. |
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