For most of my life, I have had a chronically stuffy nose, and 90% of the time blowing my nose did fuck all. I would often have a cough to try to clear my throat, due to a post nasal drip. That wouldn't really do anything either, but I would still feel compulsed to cough. When I was younger, about 10 years old I think. I'm a mouth breather, and can barely breathe through my nose at all.
On looking into an unrelated potential condition, through the grapevine I was referred to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. I have never been to an ENT before. I went and they were told by my doctor what they should be looking at, so they took a look and told me i was extremely congested, and there were polyps. They said they needed to run a CT scan.
Did the scan, and the doctor came back in and said "Your results are very interesting, and just what I suspected." I don't have my actual picture here, but here is a picture of a mostly healthy nose, as far as what this condition is, it's healthy, so look at the picture below:
In the nose (in the middle), notice all the black, anthill-like paths. That is open airway in the nose. Mine is completely grey/white and the black is almost nonexistent. My nasal airway is 99% congested! I can barely smell or breathe through my nose so much, that for the most part I can't effectively do either. I breathe almost exclusively through my mouth.
The good news is that the ENT said that a 30 minute procedure can fix this. It's Balloon Sinuplasty with Septoplasty with Turbinate Reduction. In short they're going to do a bunch of stuff including inflating my nasal passages with a balloon, pushing my septum back into place, another small incision (I forget what exactly it does), but basically it will fix these problems that have plagued me basically my entire life. I don't know how I never went to an ENT through all these years. I'm scheduled for the surgery in two weeks, and excited about being able to actually breathe. I have had trouble breathing sometimes before because of my nose.
Has anyone else had something similar to this?
On looking into an unrelated potential condition, through the grapevine I was referred to an Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor. I have never been to an ENT before. I went and they were told by my doctor what they should be looking at, so they took a look and told me i was extremely congested, and there were polyps. They said they needed to run a CT scan.
Did the scan, and the doctor came back in and said "Your results are very interesting, and just what I suspected." I don't have my actual picture here, but here is a picture of a mostly healthy nose, as far as what this condition is, it's healthy, so look at the picture below:
In the nose (in the middle), notice all the black, anthill-like paths. That is open airway in the nose. Mine is completely grey/white and the black is almost nonexistent. My nasal airway is 99% congested! I can barely smell or breathe through my nose so much, that for the most part I can't effectively do either. I breathe almost exclusively through my mouth.
The good news is that the ENT said that a 30 minute procedure can fix this. It's Balloon Sinuplasty with Septoplasty with Turbinate Reduction. In short they're going to do a bunch of stuff including inflating my nasal passages with a balloon, pushing my septum back into place, another small incision (I forget what exactly it does), but basically it will fix these problems that have plagued me basically my entire life. I don't know how I never went to an ENT through all these years. I'm scheduled for the surgery in two weeks, and excited about being able to actually breathe. I have had trouble breathing sometimes before because of my nose.
Has anyone else had something similar to this?
