Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffThe first priority in treating epiglottitis is ensuring that you're receiving enough air. You may wear a mask that delivers oxygen to your lungs, but it's more likely that you'll have a breathing tube placed into your windpipe through your nose or mouth. The tube must remain in place until the swelling in your throat has decreased — sometimes for several days.
In extreme cases or if more conservative measures fail, the doctor may need to create an emergency airway by inserting a needle directly into an area of cartilage in your trachea. This procedure, called a tracheotomy, allows air into your lungs while bypassing the larynx. The needle is removed as soon as the airway is open.
If your epiglottitis is related to an infection, you'll receive intravenous antibiotics once you're breathing freely. Until your doctor knows the results of your blood and tissue cultures, you're likely to be treated with a broad-spectrum drug. You may receive a different antibiotic later, depending on what's causing your epiglottitis.
