Anyone had one repaired? Please report experiences.
I'm getting mime mine repaired on St. Valentine's Day. Any suggestions or concerns?
charby:
The following is long, but contains some lessons learned. Good luck, whatever your decision.
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Back in 1992 or 1993 I had sinus surgery and a deviated septum repaired.
I had a chronic sinus infection that would not go away, period. This was after years of sinus/allergy problems since childhood.
For my surgery, they wallowed out the turbinates, hogged out the left frontal sinus, and busted my nose & put it back together again. During surgery, they found a large cyst in the L frontal sinus, too. The cyst+turbinates+septum did not allow my sinus to drain.
Post-op was NOT fun for a week+. MUCH worse than tonsil surgery, and more painful than surgery to repair a busted ankle. Not as bad as a certain surgery down south that shall remain nameless, in the interests of TMI.
I will call my surgery a success. For ten years, I had very few sinus infections.
Starting 5 years ago, they started to return, getting more frequent as time went on, until the last year I have had 1/month. This occurred in the face of serious preventative measures: Nielmed sinus rinse daily, allergy control with Zyrtec & other meds, nasal steroid daily.
I was resigned to another surgery, had the CAT scans & all. My doc suggested an alternate therapy: a nebulizer/atomizer/nasal inhaler 3 times/day delivering a steroid and antibiotic directly to the sinuses for a period of 3-4 months to let it all heal up. One month in, no sinus infections, despite the fact that I can only fit in two treatments per day.
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My advice:
1.
Make sure you get high-quality opiate-based pain meds. Do NOT settle for generic opiates, insist on the name brand of the most powerful your doc will proscribe. Also, take double doses (equal to prescription strength) of naproxen sodium AFTER surgery to help with pain & take with food or substantial liquids. [Get off all blood thinners (aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium) BEFORE surgery, though.] Keep an eye open for bleeding, as the NS is a blood thinner, but oh-so-effective at mitigating pain and reducing swelling post-op.
2.
Insist on Image Guided Surgery (IGS).
Run, do not walk, away from a surgeon that will not go the extra mile and use the latest technique.
The last few decades, they have done it endoscopically, which was an improvement on the previous method: hacking through your face.
IGS is another step forward past endoscopy. IGS requires a LOT of more expensive CAT scans so they can get a high-fidelity 3D image of your face, front skull, sinuses, eye sockets, and front part of your brain. During your surgery, your head is bathed in some sort of radiation (RF, EM, something else?) that shows the doc exactly where his instruments are located relative to your anatomy.
Why is that important? Well, some docs end up scraping away and grinding through your *expletive deleted*ing eye socket or through the frontal lobe of your brain. My BIL OB-GYN described his ENT buddies as dreading the "scrape, scrape...Oh *expletive deleted*it" followed by cerebro-spinal fluid running out their patient's nose. A bad day at the office for them, a life-changing event for you.
3.
Read up on the risks. I mentioned the most obvious: hacking into parts that you want to remain hack-free (eyes & brain). There are also serious risks if you do
not get chronic sinus problems treated...'cause they are so stinking close to your eyes and brain.
4.
Get a second opinion. Take the time to document --in advance of this second visit-- all your sinus-related illnesses and do your best to get the dates right. Maybe an alternate therapy can do the trick and bring the sinus problems back into the "manageable" range (Nasal rinses, allergy meds, nasal steroids, etc.). You can always have the surgery if they don't work.
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Once again, good luck.
