I recently went through with the surgery to repair my severely deviated septum just last week. It was a decision I made almost instantly when I found out I had a deviated septum. As soon as the doctor told me I had a chance to improve my nasal breathing significantly I knew I had to do it. I want to be able to breathe comfortably when i sleep, to not snore, to be able to relax with controlled nasal breathing, and these are all things I could not do easily. So, with the opportunity available and insurance covering most of the bill, I decided to go forward with the procedure.
I’ve now decided to document this journey to give any prospective septoplasty patients an idea of what to expect and give an honest opinion of my experience. I’m not in any healthcare related fields so I can’t describe the medical side in perfect detail, but I’ll do my best to give as accurate of a breakdown as possible. With all that said, let’s get into it.
The day of the surgery was fairly laid back. I was scheduled at 7:30 AM, and once I was checked in I was quickly escorted to a inner room where they started the prep, which involved getting me into the surgical gown, getting the IV set up, and answering all pre-surgery questions asked by the nursing staff. This took about an hour, most of which I spent just waiting for the surgeon to be ready. The nurse then administered some painkillers through the IV as we geared up for surgery, and once they had the green light they walked me back to the operating room. For some reason this whole time I was shivering like it was -30 degrees, even though I was fairly warm. I think nerves were getting the best of me. Fortunately the surgical staff saw this and loaded me up with blankets. Once i was comfortable on the bed, the anesthesiologist put a breathing mask on me and had me take a few deep breaths. Just a few seconds later I was out cold.
When I woke up about an hour and a half later, I was instantly groggy and a bit unsure of where I was. It took a few minutes to get my bearings. I remember that almost immediately a nurse came up to me and asked how I was feeling, and I told her I was great and my nasal breathing was already way better! This was actually true for the moment, since the bleeding hadn’t really spread so much and most of the airway was cleared, but it didn’t take long for this to clog back up. She had me drink some water, and at this point I realized just how swollen my nose was. I could barely open my mouth, and getting my lips around a straw was surprisingly challenging. But I wasn’t in any pain, just maybe a bit uncomfortable with the swelling and loss of nasal breathing. They then gave me my clothes so I could change, and once dressed they plopped me in a wheelchair, gave me some post-op instructions (along with my brother) and sent me home to start recovering.
Thankfully my brother took me right over to get my meds, which i desperately needed and would not have easily been able to do on my own, so I was very thankful for this just a few hours in. The drive home was relatively uneventful until I got home. Almost as soon as I got home I started frantically searching for my wallet, which coincidentally I had misplaced before leaving for surgery that morning. For some reason I was hellbent on finding it so I could get food delivered later, but everywhere I checked came up with nothing. After about 20 minutes of this I realized my nose was starting to run with some blood. It then dawned on me that I had just been operated on and should probably sit down to relax so i don’t bleed out. 2 hours later this was still bleeding pretty heavily, not gushing blood but just enough that i’d have to dab my nose with a tissue every minute, or just hold up a tissue to it until it stopped. They had taped a gauze pad under my nose to catch the blood, and this helped to contain the blood, but didn’t do much to stop the bleeding. However, eventually it stopped bleeding and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a recliner watching movie reviews on youtube.
One of the most challenging parts of this process was having to do the nasal irrigations every 2 hours while awake. I was warned of this before the surgery and have used a neti-pot on many occasions, but never when my nose was in this rough shape. It took an incredible amount of willpower for each irrigation just to do it, because it always seemed like it would sting and cause more pain. Fortunately it never once hurt and actually was a huge relief once I cleared some of the bloody chunks. Still, it’s a little time consuming, and I’m also a bit squeamish around blood, especially my own. This was mostly just an annoyance after a while, but I have to say it definitely helped speed up the recovery process.
Day 1 was mostly a breeze since I was still riding off the painkillers from surgery, but day 2 brought the pain. This was the first slap of reality I’d had since the surgery, and painkillers were essential to my survival on these first few days. I typically consider myself as a person with a high pain tolerance, but the nose is one of those dense nerve areas that just can’t be ignored easily. The worst part of the whole first week is the splits in each nostril, which are used to prop the nose open and keep the septum stable while healing begins. On paper that doesn’t sound so bad, but these suckers are HUGE. Like i’m talking almost the size of a small, thin banana stuffed into each nostril, deep into the sinuses. You can’t move them, take it off, or do anything to relieve the pain other than wait it out with meds until the doctor can take them out after 7 days. It’s far from the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but this was easily the most uncomfortable part of the process.
Sleep is another part that was wildly difficult. Sleeping upright sucks, and of course it’s required for the entire first week so the bleeding doesn’t get worse. I’m a side sleeper, so this was another challenge I had to get through. Fortunately painkillers helped make me groggy, and enough boring youtube videos will put anyone to sleep. I just had to deal with some discomfort and several days of less than optimal sleep.
Once my pain levels were controlled, much of the recovery process was straightforward. Day 2 I was still just trying to recover and get my bearings straight, so most of the day was spent watching movies, eating ice-cream and drinking as much water as I could muster. I had very low energy during these first few days, so most of my time was spent just relaxing trying not to lay too far back. At this point a new foe emerged: dry throat pain. Since I’m breathing through my mouth constantly, my throat was slowly getting drier and drier to the point where it was painful to swallow if I didn’t hydrate properly through the night. This made eating more difficult too, which resulted in most of my meals through the week being soft like soups or pastas. While this wasn’t the end of the world, it was a setback for my diet and muscle growth journey, and just made the week a little less enjoyable. But as they say, no pain no gain.
I was still bleeding a lot for these first few days, and had to change my gauze or tissue every 20 minutes or so. I managed to get it to stop before falling asleep on most occasions, but when i would wake up it would almost always be bleeding again. It was just something I had to deal with for a while and got annoyed with pretty quickly.
Days 3-5 were all roughly about the same. I would wake up super early (or late depending on how you look at it), immediately take my pills, then lay around for as long as it took for the pain to subside then try to sleep again. When that didn’t work, I had to find things to occupy my time that didn’t raise my blood pressure too much, like easy video games, movies and tv shows, reading, or meditating. The problem with meditating though was that I couldn’t breathe nasally, so all of my training was basically out the window and I had no idea how to fix this in my current situation. So I stayed lazy and watched just about all of Will Tennyson’s catalog on Youtube.
By now most bleeding had stopped, pain was relatively minor and I probably could have stopped taking my pain pills around day 5, but I stayed on them for an extra few days for good measure. There were times when the bleeding picked back up, but way less than the first few days. Every day I was improving, just very slowly.
Day 6 was finally a day that i could say I felt alright again. My energy was coming back, bleeding had stopped almost entirely and I was starting to feel ready to take on life again. I still didn’t do much that day, simply because I was afraid to do anything crazy since I was just 24 hours away from getting the splints out. I did go out for a walk, just about 2 miles, which was a great way to get my body moving and get some fresh air without overdoing it. I think the worst part of this day was just sitting with these splints still in there, seemingly digging in on the spots that should be healing and causing significant discomfort. I can’t stress enough how much i wanted them taken out, and that moment could not have come soon enough.
And finally, day 7 came. I was so anxious to have the splints removed that I showed up to the doctors office 45 minutes early just so I could mentally prepare myself. I can’t put into words just how annoying these things were, and I was so ready to have them out. Yet, on the other hand, knowing how painful they are just sitting in there, i was DREADING having them taken out. Sure i knew it would be a huge relief, but the anticipation of pain was getting to me. But I got my bearings straight, decided to be brave and went through with it. They took me inside, numbed each nostril, then cut the sutures attached to each splint. Then, just a moment later the doctor had me take a deep breath and one at a time she pulled these massive pieces of plastic out of my nose. I couldn’t believe the size of these things, and each one came with it’s own nasty bundle of boogers and clotted blood. Each nostril was just as painful as I expected, but after 10 seconds the relief came in and all was okay. The doctor then cleared out the airways of all blood , cleaned me up and I was free to leave.
From there it was smooth sailing, just trying to handle the new sensation of air coming through each nostril and working on diluting the remaining swelling in the nose. I’ll be honest I didn’t immediately feel the difference in breathing, but as days have gone by i am starting to get comfortable with my new ease in nasal breathing. Now it’s just about working past the tenderness still in the nose and keeping the passages clear of mucus, which is still fairly prevalent.
All in all, this was a week that i truly hope i never have to go through again, but I’m incredibly thankful that I did it and that it went so well. I’m fortunate in that this was a complete success, and i attribute some of that to my diligence keeping the area clean and following the directions of my surgeon. If this is something you’re interested in doing, you should first consider how strong your pain tolerance is and how well you can handle discomfort. It’s not an easy process, but just like many things in life, the good things don’t come easy.
I hope this helps give some perspective to any potential candidates for a septoplasty, and feel free to shoot me any questions about the process if you want some more insight.