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All About

Tracheostomy

Wildlife

Symptoms

 

Causes

  • Medical conditions that make it necessary to use a breathing machine (ventilator) for an extended period, usually more than one or two weeks
  • Medical conditions that block or narrow your airway, such as vocal cord paralysis or throat cancer
  • Paralysis, neurological problems or other conditions that make it difficult to cough up secretions from your throat and require direct suctioning of the windpipe (trachea) to clear your airway
  • Preparation for major head or neck surgery to assist breathing during recovery
  • Severe trauma to the head or neck that obstructs breathing
  • Other emergency situations when breathing is obstructed and emergency personnel can't put a breathing tube through your mouth and into your trachea

More about Treatment

Tracheostomy (tray-key-OS-tuh-me) is a hole that surgeons make through the front of the neck and into the windpipe (trachea). A tracheostomy tube is placed into the hole to keep it open for breathing. The term for the surgical procedure to create this opening is tracheotomy.

 

A tracheostomy provides an air passage to help you breathe when the usual route for breathing is somehow blocked or reduced. A tracheostomy is often needed when health problems require long-term use of a machine (ventilator) to help you breathe. In rare cases, an emergency tracheotomy is performed when the airway is suddenly blocked, such as after a traumatic injury to the face or neck.

 

FAQ on this Treatment

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