I can breathe through the nose after the surgery.
However, the improvement has been marginal at best. Best prognosis that I have got has been allergies that has caused it.
Thirty years ago an acquaintance of mine (an air force piolt) had some kind of nasal surgery. He said that they dipped a glass rod into liquid cocaine and stuck it up his nose to effectively burn out whatever was giving him a problem. Without anesthesia. Since it was an air force hospital, I’m surprised they didn’t have the cocaine delivered by an armed guard. And also, since it was an air force hospital, the technique was probably 20 years out of date.
According to my acquaintance, it was an amazing experience.
Went to another ENT doc as there was only a slight improvement. He did another exam and found that I have a chronic sinus infection.
He is going to send me for a CT scan and if that verifies it, it will be balloon sinus surgery
Interesting in that I also had cocaine during my surgery but the second ent doc said that using cocaine for nose surgery is generally not done very often
Got referred to a pulmonary doctor and he said that I have restricted lung syndrome which means that I am unable to fully fill my lungs with air which is why it is difficult to breathe at times.
Also, he said that the right lung is smaller than the left which is very unusual.
He sent me out for a CT scan to confirm it
ssgenius, my husband is having this surgery in two weeks, so I appreciate hearing about your experience.
We bought a pillow that will help him sleep upright while he recovers. Is there anything else we should have on hand besides plenty of saline and tissues? Are there foods he should avoid? Did the doctor prescribe pain meds to you?
I had a septoplasty about 30 years ago. Gads, that was unpleasant.
And now for a somewhat happier outcome…
I had a maxillary antrostomy, turbinate reduction and balloon sinuplasty last week. I unwittingly became somewhat legendary at the surgery center as I had the procedure done without anaesthesia or sedation. Just the liberally-applied local anesthetic.
Wasn’t too bad actually. They started me with a lidocaine spray, then the doc put some lidocaine gel-soaked cotton balls in my nose. Once in the OR, doc injected lidocaine and <crunch…crack> the antrostomy was done. Another shot of lidocaine elsewhere, and they threaded in the balloon. It inflates with a bit of a crackle, and that part’s done. Another lidocaine shot and it was time for the turbinate reduction. That was the only unpleasant part as the “coblator” device lets out a loud and sudden howl when it’s activated. Then the stink of burning tissues permeates my soul. Ick. Also, the anesthetic mix for this was lidocaine and epinephrine. The epi helps keep the lidocaine in the tissues longer, but it really fires up the pulse rate for a minute or two.
End to end, the whole thing took 40 minutes to do identical procedures on both sides. I don’t really get why most people have this done with general anaesthesia or sedation. I’ve had far worse visits to the dentist.
During the procedure, I asked him about the similarities between the sinuplasty device and balloon angioplasty. He said it was an angioplasty equipment sales rep that was having interminable sinus problems who had the bright idea.
One week later, I’ve pretty well gotten used to the sensation of air moving around in the upper reaches of my nose.
A few decades ago I was exposed to some nasty toxic stuff at a job and grew a lovely complement of polyps in my sinuses. They were discovered when I couldn’t seem to shake a nasty head cold and got scoped by an ENT. The surgery was extremely unpleasant, the thinking being that general anesthesia wasn’t necessary so it was an IV of twilight juice and some lidocaine. I kept having more pain the further in the doc went and they had to keep stopping, doing more lido, continuing, etc. Whatever was in the IV worked really well as soon as they stopped cutting inside my head, I passed out for five hours.
The recovery was like having the worse stuffed up head imaginable, but the most memorable part was one singular epic sneeze that felt like it exploded my eardrums. Watching/feeling them remove the packing a few days after was gross yet fascinating, instead of the solid pledgets each side was stuffed with one seemingly endless piece of gauze. I swear the doc had the same look of concentration on his face that I get when trying to peel an apple in one piece.
I hope you feel better and breathe easier soon, ss.
One week later, I’ve pretty well gotten used to the sensation of air moving around in the upper reaches of my nose.
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You, sir, are effin’ crazy. Or have balls of steel. Or are on a maintenance dose of happy pills that would fell a whole herd of horses. Or something.
When the oral surgeon who did my wisdom tooth surgery offered me the choice of local or IV sedation, he said “you won’t FEEL anything, but you will hear cracking” my hand shot up and said “SEDATE ME”. I didn’t yet have the severe dental terror I’ve since developed. But I was fairly certain the sound alone would have me exiting the chair pretty much instantaneously. Turns out to be fortunate, as I’ve since learned that he would probably NOT have been able to adequately numb me with just local.
I will admit that after my own nasal surgery, it was pretty bizarre feeling air where air hadn’t been, ever 
.
A couple of years later, I went thorough a two-month period of constant sinus infections. One doctor took a quick look with a rigid endoscope. It was in a darkened room - and at one point I could see the glow of light shining through my cheekbone. Bizarre and cool at the same time :D.
The cocaine probably WAS the anesthesia.
Yes, I was prescribed Hydrocodone and the saline solution can only be used after the splits are out. It is a little easier breathing through the nose but the real restriction is in the lungs in my case.
For foods, it shouldn’t matter but he did recommend something easy to swallow
Make sure your doctor doesn’t put something in your brain against your will through your nose immorally & illegally.
Ok, had the surgery Friday the 9th. Awful first week of recovery, appear to be on the mend now except for a persistent cough. Is this from mucus drip or irritation from the breathing tube?
Did I mention that this was awful to go through?
I hope that I am wrong but what condition this sinus surgery was supposed to correct may end up being terminal
Over the past few years, I have been tired at work and had no energy whatsoever
Been to many doctors and specialists and the best conclusion made so far is that I have
a chronic lung disease known as restrictive airway disease. My lungs were never 100% developed and now that I am getting older (47 now) I am really getting winded anytime that I move.
I can’t go for much more than a slow jogging pace at best right now and get out of breath right away at that pace
I can fell this restriction in the lungs as I breath and it is getting harder and harder to take a breathe.
Over the last few weeks it has got a lot worse
2 days ago, I woke up at 7:00, went to the Gym for a workout, was back by 8:00 or so, got some stuff ready to work on a vehicle and then decided to take a short nap before starting.
Next thing I remember it is noon and the parts guy has a distributor for me, I sign for it, open it up and look at the fixed distributor
I then still felt a little under the weather so I went back to sleep for a few minutes and next thing I knew it was 18:00 and I still had little energy. I got up, had something to eat and felt not too bad but then because it was raining and storming out, I figured it could wait so I went back to bed.
At 21:00 was feeling going in and out of consciousness and there was a tingling in my wrist and I felt awful. I send an email to parent (bad idea) that I thought I might be dying and to check up on me.
I then realized that I had never given the vitals to my family so I made another email giving the basics (assets, bank accounts, keys to the jet planes, etc)
I then trying to go bacl to sleep and I felt like I was not entirely there. When I woke up later around 6:00 I could barely get up and still felt week. I called my neighbor (I live alone) and told him that I was going to urgent care.
He said he would come over and drive me there and it is a good thing that he did as I could barely move and was very uncoordinated with blurry vision
The ER docs checked my heart (it was good) and then gave me a sort of a stimulant drug to get me going again for the day but cautioned on driving anywhere
After some time, I got better but it was a weird experience. Later in the day (today) I started to feel weakness and tingling in the legs and the vision was getting slightly blurry similar to before. I went to the urgent care center again and they said to get an appointment with your regular doctor (tomorrow) and look at another sleep study.
they also recommended that I get an oxygen and pulse monitor and wear it over night in case the levels get too low.
It could be a fun night tonight as I can feel this restricted breathing in the nose and I get very fatiqued if I start to move.
I told my neighbor to check up on me in the morning as several other recent morning, it has been somewhat of a struggle to get up.
Hope this comes out okay
Sorry for the long post
I hope you get the care you need. Please us posted.
Well, it was an interesting night.
According to my brother, at one point I was talking to him on the phone and then I started spewing nonsense and then I would lose consciousness and then slowly recover over a span of 20 minutes.
This is what I typed while it occurred and I was recovering
Initially: Dry mouth rapid respiration , can’t talk. very weak, o2 level is now 98% while resting . can’t talk but can type.
About 10 minutes after it, I can walk and talk but still feel weak in the legs and can also talk and got more water and some food.
After 20 minutes I could walk outside but felt weak in the legs and no running and the breathing still felt restricted
After 30 minutes I was also back to near normal. But then I would feel fatigued again and slowly drift off to sleep only to have this repeat itself.
It did this at least 4 or 5 times in the night.
In the morning, I went to my primary doctor and described all these events (Driving there was a challenge as I also seemed to be driving like I was intoxicated)
The primary doctor suspects it might be a type of a seizure and was trying to get me an appointment with a neurologist.
On a secondary point, while going to the doctor for this appointment, I was just not feeling that well with this potentially dangerous driving and I stopped at a brand new ER facility to see if they could help. All that I wanted was some help to get to my primary doctor’s office.
They gave me some suggestions but if I was not going to be treated at their Brand New facility, I had to leave their premises immediately including their parking lot or I would be Arrested! and they were dead serious (and very polite) about that. I couldn’t even stay for a few minutes to wait for someone.
That is where I am at for today. I do have a follow-up sleep study scheduled for tomorrow
Did have a follow-up sleep study completed last night.
Going into the night as I was getting wired up for this, I felt just fine and actually pretty good and ready for the overnight study.
Got all the connections hooked up and sent away one last message. While getting hooked up, I tried to explain to the sleep therapist what I had experienced the previous few days.
Namely, that I would go to sleep for about an hour and then I would have my sleep interrupted by self waking up and the process of this would take 10 - 20 minutes for me to be reasonably functional. I would start with a racing breath, not much power in the limbs and the mouth and the throat would be dry. Then after about 20 minutes, I would be good enough to get up and get a drink of water and walk around the center
I would then lay back down and it would not take me too long to go back to sleep but then subconsciously, I would try to avoid going back to a deep sleep because of the panic reaction when waking up with the shallow breaths and not being able to move for a few minutes.
The sleep technician did not notice anything unusual during these episodes or at least she didn’t indicate that anything was really strange being recorded with all the sensors.
I had at least 2 of these episodes that I remember during the night and both times I had to get up for some water to clench my thirst.
Nothing more to say except that the evening seemed to go by in a blur. She came in at 5:00 am and said that she had enough data and I was free to go. By 5:30 am, I was out of the facility but I still felt tired in that I didn’t get that great of a night’s rest. Still a little groggy in the morning
If there was anything unusual with the collected data, she didn’t know or did not tell me.
While driving back to my place, I noticed that there was quite heavy traffic on the Interstate and as per usual, it seemed like everyone else was driving at the typical Interstate speed and lots of switching lanes. It would be as my old physics teacher would say “Controlled Chaos”
Meanwhile I was just trying not to cause any accidents as I was still a little groggy with my driving
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////sleep except that
Glad your doctors are taking you seriously and you’re getting tested. Try not to worry too much about all of this. IANAD, but I wonder if you are having anxiety attacks? Some of what you are describing could match. Read about them online and see what you think. Anxiety and anxiety attacks cause physical symptoms that are very real. If you think they could be a contributing factor, talk to your doctor. There are treatments that could help you.