Eustachian tube balloon procedure for diving

[chillyinCanada]

I'm asking for a friend (seriously), but we are Canadian and this ballooning isn't really offered up here. Do any of you, who have had it done, by Dr. Weeks or other, know how much it cost, either you or your insurer?

My friend was told by a Canadian ENT that it would cost an outrageous amount of money for the procedure, were he to choose to go to the states to have it done.

Please feel free to contact me in a private message, rather than reply here.

 

[MargaritaMike]

I'm asking for a friend (seriously), but we are Canadian and this ballooning isn't really offered up here. Do any of you, who have had it done, by Dr. Weeks or other, know how much it cost, either you or your insurer?

My friend was told by a Canadian ENT that it would cost an outrageous amount of money for the procedure, were he to choose to go to the states to have it done.

Please feel free to contact me in a private message, rather than reply here.

I had it done and love the results. My insurance covered it. I think that one of the cost issues that you will encounter is that each provider charges you separately. Besides the ENT cost, you have the facility cost, and the anesthetist's cost. I'm sure there are other costs, but I can't think of any right now. I'll try to look up what all of the cos's were but no promises.

Cheers -

Edit - changed type of costs and grammatical errors

 

[chillyinCanada]

I had it done and love the results. My insurance covered it. I think that one of the cost issues that you will encounter is that each provider charges you separately. Besides the ENT cost, you have the facility cost, and the anesthetist's cost. I'm sure there are other costs, but I can't think of any right now. I'll try to look up what all of the cos's were but no promises.

Cheers -

Edit - changed type of costs and grammatical errors

That would be really appreciated, thank you.

As an underwater videographer, he's just got to be able to get back in the water. He's been relatively resigned to his fate after having been to every ENT etc., up here but this could be a game changer, unless it truly is cost prohibitive based on what the Canadian ENT told him.

 

[Dr Simon Mitchell]

We just published this paper in the March issue of DHM. Unfortunately the full paper is embargoed for a year (available to members of the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society and the European Undersea Baromedical Society). There are lots of relevant papers published in this journal. I will start a thread on this separately sometime soon, but divers can join SPUMS as associate members for about 86USD. For a someone very engaged in the sport it is well worth it.

 

[doctormike]

Thanks for this. Watching this space closely. My clinical practice is pediatric, so I probably won't start doing this myself, but I speak with a lot of divers about these things, and this seems to have promise.

Simon, I'll join the society and pull the paper. The points that I would be interested in would be:

1) The length of follow up for this cohort and the duration of the effect. Not sure what they anatomical basis would be for a prolonged improvement unless there was some sort of ET fibrosis, as opposed to a functional neuromuscular problem causing ETD. We do balloon dilation of pediatric subglottic stenosis with lasting effect, presumably the result of breaking scar tissue with remodeling. Perhaps several staged procedures would be needed for permanent improvement in ET function.

2) Complications. The main thing that I would worry about would be the internal carotid artery which runs near the ET. What percentage of patients have a bony dehiscence in the wall? I'm also really interested in that patient with SNHL - any idea what caused that? Inner ear barotrauma?

 

[divepsych]

I had the balloon dilation of right ET today in Raleigh NC.
Equalizing my right middle ear has been a problem since I learned to dive in 1971.
I look forward to finding out how well it works next time I dive or fly or drive into the mountains.

 

[afdgf]

That would be really appreciated, thank you.

As an underwater videographer, he's just got to be able to get back in the water. He's been relatively resigned to his fate after having been to every ENT etc., up here but this could be a game changer, unless it truly is cost prohibitive based on what the Canadian ENT told him.

I just had it done a second time after having the first time some years ago. Now it is covered completely by Medicare if you have it done in the office. If you want to go to a hospital, then there are costs for hospital, anesthesia etc. I do not know about people who are not on Medicare. The reason for the second time is that even though I could clear doing descents after the first time, I still had trouble clearing when doing a swimthrough upside down. I have not tried clearing upside down yet to see if this works.