Seeing how our lives have changed in the past 3 years that we have survived and are living with the novel coronavirus and its various mutations, some closer to home some so far away but may reach for you at any moment. The highly successful vaccination drive we have all been a part of has paved its way to various possibilities of adapting to coexist with the virus looming around us. This has changed the way our patients seek us out, online ent in gurgaon consultations have started to increase.
The thing with online consultation is we are losing the fundamentals of being a clinician, looking at our patients expressions change and to judge the complaint the years of training made us master to look at our patient in a holistic approach to observe for any grievances not just the ones they would like to address things a camera just cannot phantom to capture.
Slowly but surely the deficiencies in the currently adapted methods have started to seep in, coming to the topic I would like to discuss
Post covid unresolved sinusitis cases are lining up our ent specialist clinic and daily practice recently and has me wondering is the gap between us practitioners and patients leading us to miss the things we would generally have caught?
Patient- doctor I had fever and cold a few weeks back, consulted online as covid test was positive and was advised few medicines which I have completed, despite that I have throat irritation/ heaviness in the head/ foul smell or bad breath.
Patient- I had fever and cough last week, I have used the same medicines for covid that were prescribed to my friend. Fever and cough are gone but I am not fully recovered or have lingering headaches/ my sleep is disturbed.
In both the scenarios my patients are talking about post covid sinusitis. Who is the real culprit here? By immersing ourselves into this virtual world and gentrifying an illness we are letting the virus win by developing resistance to various antibiotics. The sacred oath that lets us begin our life as ent doctors has been blurred in the virtual world.
What is post covid rhinosinusits?
It is a persistent inflammation in the nose and paranasal sinuses despite taking treatment for symptoms of covid.
Why is it happening?
This could be either due to inadequate treatment, not addressing the accompanying nasal symptoms that are invariably seen in the majority of covid patients.
How serious is the condition?
Like any inflammatory disease it has its own course to run depending on the patient’s immune status, if not addressed it can cause chronic sinusitis, nasal polyposis or fungal sinusitis.
What to look out for?
- Nasal blockage
- Foul smell
- Headaches
- Facial pain or fullness
- Irritation in the throat
- Snoring
Adapting to live with the virus has made us think out of the box and come up with various ways to cope with it. We have started our career in medicine by paying our respects to a dead human body in my anatomy hall before we were allowed to dissect it, the sacrifices made by countless individuals have advanced medicine to what it is today. We certainly have a long way to go, but are online consultations the best way to pave a way to the future?
