I should have kept my deviated septum

[BigV]

The saline solution used in that rinse bottle comes in little packets, but I ran out of those. I switched to a small amount of regular salt in warm water. I use a little pile in my palm about as big around as a quarter and this is mixed in a cup that holds two bottles' worth.

The squeezing and swishing and snorting and coughing and snotting and spitting... all totally worth it. I usually do two bottles each time, in sequence. I bend over the tub or the sink when I'm doing it. It's gross. But it cleans out that area in a way that just blowing my nose does not. Really, follow your after care instructions, especially if they include this step.

As for why I want to do this again, I think the sinus did get uncorked, did get drained, turbinates did get resectioned... but. But there's still a lingering chronic infection of some kind (fungal perhaps? that word was used at the beginning of this whole ordeal).

This part's gross. . . you might want to move on to the next post.

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...

Ok.

Sometimes, my left sinus fills up with mucus, sometimes very watery, like water. But it's not clear, like normal, it's the color of a manila folder yellowy, sometimes with a greenish tinge. The hell of it is, I can't tell it's filling up until I lean over like you might when you would look under the table for something that's fallen on the floor. Then I get a pouring out of this mucus, drip drip drip, at the pace of a good nosebleed. Sometimes I can smell/taste it, not really appetizing. urgh.

Blowing my nose is necessary at this point, but it's usually just a temporary measure for a couple reasons. The biggest one is because of our anatomy. It's very difficult to get a sinus to drain because of the tortuous shape of the passages from sinus to nose/throat. Also, as more of the mucus actually flows through my nose, over the course of hours, it gets more exposure to air (more than in the sinus where it's generated) and it thickens, giving me half a snotty nose from hell. Blowing and rinsing and wiping and rubbing... ugh. The combination of breathing difficulty and running/dripping snot... I want another plan to cure/cauterize/fill with epoxy/I don't fucking care, just do something. It's misery.

(really gross part)

Sometimes, when I blow my nose, I get great relief. I find a giant, flat-ish mostly crusty booger in the tissue and it often has a wet hole in it. This is the not-quite-fully-cemented-shut opening of the ostia from my sinus to my nasal passages. This has happened enough for me to know that the crap is coming from the sinus like a goddamn ever-flowiing artesian spring of snot. Something's going on in there that has to be stopped. It never happens on the right side. I'm not sick. There's something IN THERE causing this reaction.

After I have a thorough rinse, I always have water stuck in my nasal passages. Sometimes even hours later, when I tip my head this way or that, drops of water pour out. It takes awhile for the water to get out, either from my nose or my throat.
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Ok. I don't know why you had your surgery done Clod. Were you having breathing problems? Sinus trouble like mine? Something else? Right now, I don't have the same problem that sent me to the doctor in the first place, but I do have basically the same symptom, some uncontrolled source of trouble in my sinus that my body responds to as described above. Additionally, I find that the turbinate reduction I had done on the right side *has* improved my ability to breathe through that side. It does still sometimes close up, as happens to everyone. The swelling of those tissues is not controllable. Some swelling, periodic and temporary is normal. But I have less tissue on that side so it doesn't swell shut as often or as easily. When I go back, I'll have the same thing done on the left side as well as whatever needs to be done to clear up the "infection" in the sinus.

Here are a couple links to useful information about what's going on in your nose/sinuses/throat/etc. Also, a couple videos that I found useful for helping me visualize what the shapes inside my head looked like.





http://www.surgery.com/procedure/end...-sinus-surgery

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Semilunar_hiatus

[Lola Bunny]

I hope you get better soon, Clod!

[Razzmatazz13]

Originally Posted by BigV

... There's something IN THERE causing this reaction. ...

Maybe they forgot to take out your packing stuff too??

...Or nose gremlins... I see them all the time on Mucinex commercials. They seem like jerks.

[Clodfobble]

The reason I originally went in, way long ago, is a condition called Patulous Eustachian Tubes. On the one hand, this condition has probably helped me be a better voiceactor and sound engineer. On the other hand, as it progresses with age, it tends to lead to more uncomfortable symptoms, like the severe, chronic tinnitus that my mother now lives with (from whence I apparently got the genetics for said gigantic eustachian tubes.) It would seem that I am due for her fate someday, so I went in just to talk to them about it, and see if there was anything I could do now that would slow the progression and just sort of keep things where they are forever.

The doctor (who is the same lady who took out Minifob's tonsils, and has done work on several other friends and their kids, and whom I trust completely,) noted my deviated septum, and the fact that my turbinates were not only sort of thin and swollen, but that they actually spun the wrong direction. It's a pair of corkscrews, that are supposed to mirror each other and spin upward and outward, but she showed me on the CAT scan how my turbinates rotate inward, which has probably contributed to a lifetime of mild congestion. It's not horrific, it's just always there 100% of the time--I told her I didn't feel like I had problems with congestion, and then she sprayed this industrial-strength decongestant all way up the back of my nose, and all this drainage came out, and it was like, "Oh, is this what it feels like for normal people to breathe? Huh."

Anyway, she said that there really isn't much she can do about the eustachian tubes until the problem is bad enough to warrant a surgery to try to close them manually (which isn't what I want right now, but by the way, I'm going to send my mother in to see you...) BUT she convinced me that solving the chronic congestion and deviated septum would lead to less swelling in the area, and that could quite possibly slow the lifelong stretching of my eustachian tubes. Or not. But it was a good thing for me to do, in any case. And all these people I know were telling me about how they had done it, and it had been such an easy procedure, life-altering, etc. etc.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, in the end, the deciding factor was that we've met our out-of-pocket maximum for the year. Anyone in the family can get any procedure done before the end of the year, and it's completely free. So all the things we think we'll probably have to get done in the next 2 years, we're trying to make them happen before December. I figured, why not, throw the sinus thing in there too.

Except now I know why not. It's okay, I am slowly getting better. I'm sure that, if I hadn't been such a bleeder, my experience would have been the same as other people's. No one was expecting me to be a hemophiliac only in my nose and nowhere else.

[footfootfoot]

definitely get both your rotator cuffs done. Usually they'll only do one per year because it takes that long to regain the use of your arm, but tell them you are in a hurry, and mr. cold will wipe you.

Life altering. 100% guaranteed

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, Mr. Clod's shoulder is on the list, though I'm pretty sure he's only going to be interested in doing the one that hurts. And of course now both my stepkids need endoscopic biopsies to confirm celiac. There are a surprising number of procedures we came up with, when we really thought about it. Mr. Clod wants LASIK, but I won't let him because I think glasses are hot.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Christ, I had no idea it would suck this much.

Thursday, I went in to have my sinus passages Roto-rooted. I had a severely deviated septum, plus my turbinado passages were corkscrewed the wrong way, somehow. This was supposed to dramatically improve congestion, sleep apnea, sinus infections, etc. This was also supposed to be a dinky little "2 hours then we send you home with a few Vicodin" thing, comparable to wisdom tooth extraction, a little tired for the next few days, blah blah blah.

Well, no. My nose just keeps bleeding and bleeding after surgery, and I keep vomiting all the blood I'm swallowing, so new plan, they put me back under that afternoon, repack everything tighter with gauze, cauterize a few things, and wake me up again. I go home and pass out for a few hours, but soon I'm awake and vomiting blood again. We call the doctor, go back to the ER, they put me under again at 2 in the morning and give it the ol' college try once again, cauterizing the shit out of everything and giving me blood clotting agents as well. They send me home with 5 inch gauze sticks jammed up my nose, dangling little tampon strings across my face, and tell me not to take them out until Sunday.

I wish I'd never agreed to this. The Vicodin's pretty good for the pain, but I still feel like shit. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to correct their deviated septums...

I hope you feel better soon, Clod.

Yeeeeaaahhh. My wife had this done, and they mislead her, too. she didn't have the multiple surgery thing, but she vomitted and was flat on her back for about 4 days. That was prolly 8 years ago, and she doesn't regret it. I'm thinking about having it done - I get too many sinus infections and have ear pain.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Mr. Clod wants LASIK, but I won't let him because I think glasses are hot.

Lot's of complaints post-LASIK, and glasses ARE hot!

[Clodfobble]

Yeah, I had it done in 1998, and it was awesome, I would definitely make the same choice... but I was starting from legally-blind with severe astigmatism, so it was a major quality of life issue for me. Mr. Clod's prescription is like basic reading glasses, -1.25 diopters or some nonsense, and I've warned him he could easily regress that much after the surgery anyway. I've regressed to the point that I need thin little glasses most of the time now, but it's nothing like it was before.

[footfootfoot]

What about getting the lasik and wearing plano lenses?

j/k -1.25 that's not much of a prescription.

[Pico and ME]

Glad you are feeling better Clod, that was truly crummy! I've heard horror stores about that procedure too...they totally lie to you, I think.."Oh, it will be fine...a few days of minor discomfort." Yeah, right.

I had lasik too and had a few problems, the first attempt only got me to 20/40. But after the second attempt, my right eye is practically 20/20, and I think my left eye is close, but it is suffering more astigmatism and so my vision is always just slightly off. Ive gotten used to it. My close vison went down the tubes, though, so I have reading glasses stashed EVERYWHERE. But I am fifty, so I just blame it on age. I started off as bad as you, I think. Really, really high nearsightedness and astigmatism. So I am definitely much BETTER OFF.

[Clodfobble]

WARNING: completely disgusting medical picture to follow.



















So I'm working with the nasal rinse to flush out some of the remaining junk and blood clots, and I've got a pretty good rhythm going, spraying and sucking and spitting and blowing, lots of progress being made.

At some point, I blow casually into the Kleenex, and pop, this relatively gigantic plastic roll comes out, like a message in a bottle. It actually isn't plastic, it feels like a thick gelatin, the kind of thing that's supposed to be left inside and dissolve in a short period of time. My guess is that they wallpapered my sinuses with it/them in an attempt to stop the bleeding, and this one sprung back into shape instead of sticking. I'm going to have the doctor check for one on the other side though, just in case.

[monster]

um, ew?

[Clodfobble]

I know, right? And the first thing I had to do was take a picture of it.

[monster]

but of course.

need a recipe for it?

[limey]

Haggis!