Looks like I'm having to get nose surgery. I've been suffering with nasal congestion for about 4 months now and finally seen an ENT doctor. Looks like my passages are collapsing and a little deviated septum. Doctor wants to do a Septoplasty. Has anyone here ever had one? My biggest fear is not being able to breathe thru my nose during recovery. I've been surviving on nasal sprays for too long now and those are not doing my nose any good. Lol
What a way to start the year off!!
I was diagnosed with the same thing, several years ago. Right after my diagnosis, I heard some horrible stories from several people who had recently (or just after my diagnosis) had similar surgeries. For one guy, the packing broke down, and his nose collapsed, and he did not have the money to have them fix it (when really, they didn't pack his nose right and they should have fixed it for him no cost!) So he has permanent nasal issues now, and things are worse than before he had the surgery. Others have had issues with recovery that left them with one side or the other of their nose being worse than before surgery.
So that really concerned me, and I never had the surgery myself. Instead, I took more extreme measures to protect my nose from irritants and allergens, and also did about 4 years or so of allergy shots. Between those two things, the inflammation in my nose, which IMO was the REAL cause of the nasal issues, greatly diminished and now has effectively vanished (most of the time I'm fine, occasionally if I'm not careful enough about keeping my nose protected from irritants, I get a little inflamed.) For the most part, for the first time in my whole life really, which is now about...3 years or so, I'd say (about 2.5 years into my allergy shot regime, my nose ceased to be the CONSTANT problem it had been for the entirety of my life), I am able to breathe through my nose without issues, it is not constantly inflamed, it does not feel stuffed all the time, etc.
FWIW, I started my allergy shots when I was 40 (well, nearly 41 I guess), and ended when I was 45 and change. I'm 46 now. From about 43 to now, I've been able to breathe just fine, and even with my mouth closed and through my nose (most of my life before, I could never breathe through my nose), and I NEVER HAD THE SURGERY!! After hearing some of those nitemare stories about people who have had some kind of nasal surgery, I am very glad I did not go through with it, as I'm one of those people who almost always seems to have the worst outcome possible. I also was very concerned about the recovery period, which was several weeks to a month plus, and not being able to breathe through my nose...I don't know how I would have handled that. Or rather, even when I've been stuffy, there is always some kind of air passage through the nose...and when there is not, that is when I am MOST miserable.
There was one thing, I noticed in 2020/2021, after I had a very serious bout of, well not quite allergies, but a toxic reaction that left me with more issues than I'd ever had before in my life (and which lead to me starting the allergy shots in mid 2020). When my nose became stuffy, the "natural" (maybe not?) reaction I had was to SNIFF INWARDS. I don't know why I realized it, but, the tought occurred to me, I think it was late 2020 actually, that sniffing in, was really JUST SUCKING ALLERGENS AND TOXINS DEEPER! Into my nose, nasal passages, sinuses, and lungs! I think one of the other things, that has really helped my nose and reduce the inflammation (which is IMO the REAL reason some people are "congested" all the time), was to purposely re-train my "natural" reactions to NEVER sniff in, if my nose is reacting to an allergen or toxin. I think in fact, I was reading an article that actually explained in detail, exactly what "snot"
D) is, and why your nose gets running, and exactly what that fluid contains, how it works, and why it is supposed to help PROTECT your nose. That fluid from your nose, actually contains these, as the article explained it, spherules that are designed to encapsulate irritant particles, so they can be FLUSHED OUT. However, that only works, if you don't sniff in, and suck all that fluid, those spherules, and the irritants they are encapsulating, back in! You have to make sure you only evacuate, blowing your nose, for this natural response to irritants to function correctly. So I started working to purposely retrain my natural responses, to never sniff in, when my nose is reacting to an irritant of any kind. I think it worked.
That, combined with the allergy shots, I think, has completely changed the nature of my nose. I was congested 90% of the time throughout most of my life, from the time I was a kid (before the age of 10 IIRC), until I was about 42 or so. Since I retrained my natural responses, and did the allergy shot regime, the difference has been INCOMPARABLE! My nose is, I can only assume I guess, "normal"...or at least, it is very rarely if ever congested. The feeling that I used to have, most of the time, of being "sick", has largely vanished (only time I do feel that way now, is if I am indeed actually sick for real, or if I have in fact been exposed to some kind of irritant, and I think most of the time its more of a toxic issue than an allergic issue). My nose is a lot drier, although not entirely dry (it has what I can only assume is a more natural mucus layer), and is not congested, stuffed, tight, closed off, etc.
The reason I'm writing this in so much detail...is to potentially give you another option, over surgery. For me, I've never had any surgery, and I really didn't like how the doc described the recovery process. Then all the nitemare stories from people who HAD had the surgery, pretty much shut that option down. This was about a year after the 2020 event with the toxins that lead me to starting the allergy shots, as I was still occasionally getting exposure to the same toxin (CA glue fumes, as it turned out). I am glad I held off on the surgery as about a year or so later, my nose was in great shape, the supposedly "deviated septum" was really not an issue (its still deviated, as far as I know, but its just not really an issue...I don't think it is "the" issue at all...the real issue, was the extreme amount of INFLAMMATION that made my nasal tissues so swollen, that I couildn't breathe, and that slight deviation in the septum then, made my right nose more likely to be "stuffed" than the left...but, the problem was really teh inflammation, the bodie's response to allergens and toxins. Since the inflammation has died off, the deviation of my septum has no effect on my ability to breathe, does not cause any issues with my nose or nasal passages. My turbinates, which as I've now learned, are a key part of breathing through the nose and your nasal passages properly warming the air before it reaches your lungs, etc. were never reduced, and are doing their job just fine.
So...there is an alternative, and I just wanted you to know that it is potentially an option, if you are worried about the surgery and the recovery process. Its not an immediate fix, it might take up to three years, although if you can re-train yourself to not sniff in (if you even do) when your nose gets runny due to an irritant, it took me I'd say about half a year, to fully retrain my natural response there and stop sniffing in. I guess I also trained myself to keep boxes of tissue all over the place.
Well, whichever path you choose...best of luck, and if you go the surgery route, I hope your recovery goes smoothly and without a hitch.
