Black Hairy Tongue

For a relatively rare condition, black hairy tongue has received quite the national attention from CNN to the New York Post after a case report was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on 9/6/18.

Normally the dorsal surface of the tongue mucosa is covered by filiform papillae protrusions that typically rise less than 1mm from the surface. However, in black hairy tongue, these normally very short tongue protrusions can grow to over 1 cm in length and 2mm width.

This carpet of abno…

Dr. Chang Quoted in Refinery29 Article About Nasal Spray Addiction

Dr. Chang was quoted in a Refinery29 article regarding risks of using decongestant nasal sprays such as Afrin. The risk mainly being that a person's nose may become addicted to such nasal sprays, a medical condition called rhinitis medicamentosa.

Check out the article which was published in Aug 2, 2018! Dr. Chang is quoted as follows:
I wanted to ask an expert what the verdict really is on nose spray, so I turned to Christopher Chang, MD, an otolaryngologist in Warrenton, VA. "It's …

Probiotic Rinse for Chronic Sinusitis

Probiotics are often taken with oral antibiotics to help prevent nausea and diarrhea induced by killing off the "good" along with the bad bacteria within the digestive tract. It is now known that just as with the digestive tract, the sinuses also require "good" bacteria to remain healthy. With too much antibiotic use, the sinuses become depleted of all the good bacteria allowing for the bad germs to trigger another sinus infection leading to a cycle of recurrent sinusitis.

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Allergic Laryngitis (Hoarse Voice Due to Allergies)

I've finally taken the time to video-record a patient suffering from laryngitis due to allergies both before and after successful treatment.

Check out the video below of a singer who suffered from severe untreated allergies both before and after treatment (shown in the latter half of the video). Note the thick clear mucus on the vocal cords. Several strong throat-clears were required to remove this thick mucus from her vocal cords (incidentally, she did have some mild right vocal cord swe…

When to Take Mucinex (and When Not To)

Mucinex (aka guaifenesin) is an over-the-counter medication that is often used to treat cough and other symptoms of upper respiratory illnesses (URI). However, this medication unfortunately is also often used to treat other symptoms inappropriately.

It is believed to work by increasing the volume of secretions thereby reducing the viscosity of thick secretions that may be present in the trachea and bronchi with URI. (To use an analogy, it's like adding water to syrup to thin it out.)

It wor…

New Video Showing How a Cleft Lip Repair is Performed

A new video has been created showing how a unilateral complete cleft lip repair is surgically performed. This animation was created to help patients and their families understand how this type of repair is performed for educational purposes. This animation was created with the help of Dr. Jared Christophel at University of Virginia.

There are many ways to perform cleft lip repair including the LeMesurier quadrilateral flap repair, Randall-Tennison triangular flap repair, Millard rotation-advan…