I am 41 year old Medical Engineer . for a long time I have had breathing difficulties particularly at bed time. I would not say it was a severe life altering difficulty but it would sometimes drive me crazy as I could only sleep on one side otherwise I would almost choke .All the ENT specialists I ever visited , 5 in total , agreed readily as soon as they would see the inside of my nose . " Oh yes clear septal deviation , when shall we book you for the operation " To cut a long story short , after years and years of making up excuses , and having developed hypertension a few years back , my blood pressure doctor said that severe sleep apnea caused by by bad nasal airflow could in theory cause a raised BP in some cases. I , with very enthusiastic support from my wife , (hoping it would stop my snoring ) went ahead and booked a normal Septoplasty with my insurance covered ENT . But , at the last minute a few friend of mine at the hospital were the operation was scheduled said they thought I should choose a Plastic Surgeon rather than an ENT as I had a slight protrusion of the deviated septal cartridge showing in one of the nostrils. and he would do a better job of fixing that.
Any way I re-booked with a cosmetics Surgery Specialist , who was only too eager to do the surgery. I made the mistake of not asking enough questions about what exactly he was about to do in the operation , but he sounded so sure of himself and would dismiss any of my concerns. At that stage I was more concerned about septal perforations and dry nose syndrome than post op breathing , because obviously my breathing was going to be 100% better , right? after all that's what the op was designed for .
just before going in for Surgery I told the Surgeon that apart form the protruding cartilage ,I did not want the appearance of my nose altered in any shape. again he assured me that any changes I would see would be transitory and not to worry . The Surgery was done on the 17th of January 2012. It lasted three hours .For the first day I was in a great deal of pain and discomfort and had to have all manner of IV pain killers. The recovery was very very miserable . I was bruised and swollen so badly I still have bad halos around my eyes 3 months later . The packing was removed 4 days post op , but pain-wise and swelling wise things did not improve until a month following this surgery. I had very strange plastic splints that were giving me nightmare that the surgeon would not remove until I begged him five weeks after Surgery. All this was very out of the ordinary from what I had been led to believe about Septoplasty recovery but I was still not alarmed as I thought OK may be a I am a slow healer . I was very alarmed though when having removed the short splints , which I thought were the main obstacle to the promised 100% nose breathing Nirvana . I was still as clogged as ever especially on the side which had previously been open. I also was by now unhappy with the shape of the nose which was upturned drastically , was much shorter in length , and had a hump where previously there was none.
Everyone kept telling me , wait , wait , you're still healing your nose is still tender , etc . I am now resigned to the fact that my breathing is worse than what it was originally and my nose looks worse as well . My surgeon still maintains that it is still early days . But I now Know that he has a reputation for performing aggressive surgeries .This was a very traumatic and pointless exercise that has left me angry and self conscious . My advise to anyone contemplating this procedure is study your case in detail , know exactly what they intend to do to you . Don't rush into these things just because the doctors have got you by the nose and are dashing to catch the next septoplasty takeoff.
