Can I evade general anesthesia?
Posted , 2 users are following.
I'm 38 yrs old and breathing is a hard task for me in all my life to the point that I thought I'm just unlucky person by having a bad nose but recently somene told me that this is not normal so I decided to find if there's any cure for this problem. I made scanning on nose and it revealed the following 3 problems:
1) Right sided middle choncha bullosa
2) Hypertrophied both inferior turbinates, that is more prominent on right side.
3) Mild deviated nasal septum to right.
I have the followign questions:
1) Is it possible for me to have the medical operation for curing these 3 issues with local anesthesia as opposed to general?
The reason is that I'm always panic from hospitals in general & medical operations specifically especially those under general anesthesia!. I've done a lasek surgery about 2 years ago and it works up till now perfectly well and I'm still so happy with it so far to the point that I'm quite panic that this general anesthesia will affect my vision in anyway and return me to the glasses era.
2) Will this operation change the shape of my nose in anyway? and how long should the operation take on average? and how long should it take me to recover and get back to work?
Thanks in advance for your patience & looking forward to read your opinions as I'm extremely worried about the whole thing!
0 likes, 3 replies
care4health magmag
Posted
You mentiond you had a scanning. What sort of scanning? CT? MRI? or a camera up you nose?
I had choncha bullosa, and I had a surgery for it. But it did not solve the problem at all. I had just as bad blocked nose as before. I got the surgery report from the hospital, the whole process lasted 20 min only. It was a few years ago and at the time I live in a very different climate, hot tropics. ENT told me that it's not good for me and should move somewhere not that humid. So after trying a millions of different srays, antihistamine, you name it, didn't help so I moved.
And indeed it got heaps better.
But I am still suffering congestions at night, one side always gets blocked when I turned to my side, but sometimes I wake up with bad congestion on both sides.
I recently went to see another ENT at the public hospital and I was told that I have an enlarged inferior turbinates and I could benefit form a surgery. ENT put up that little camera up my nose, that's how she diagnosed it.
I went to see a private one as well, he didn't look into my nose with a camera, so I was not convinced that he did a thorough check. But he told me the same thing, taht the inferior turbinates are the problem and that he could do a cautery of the inferior turbinates, it's done with local anesthetic. But he also said it's not as effective as the turbinectomy.
I'm due for another check up at the hospital. I did request a CT, I thought it would be a good idea to have a full picture before I go ahead with a surgery. But the CT didn't show that there would be anything wrong with the turbinates,the report said there is some bilateral ethmoid sinus thickening.
So I will go back to the hospital next week and ask how come that the CT didn't show the enlarged turbinates?! And how would a turbinectomy help?
I was also told by some ENT that I had deviated septum, though I have this since childhood, and never caused any problem.
That's my story, but everyone is different, something which does not help me might help others.
General anesthetic is never a good thing, but I had no problem whatsoever with it. These surgeries should not change the shape of your nose
But I would seriously double check if your septum is severly deviated enough to cause problems. Many people live with some deviation, with no issues at all,
It is the worst part of the three surgeries, and if can be avoided I certanly wood.
The local anethetic can be only done for the inferior turbinates, the choncha bullosa and the septum only under gen. anesthetic.
Please tell me about your scan, and how it's been diadnosed
magmag care4health
Posted
Thanks for the detailed story of your case which tells me there's lots of things in common between us!
I also have everlasting problems during my sleep hours where I wake up in the morning (or even after a short nap) feeling my mouth so dry (from excessive use of mouth in breathing) due to my inability to breathe thru nose since they get clogged up especially during my unconsciousness (sleeping) so my nasal problems get worse as a maximum during sleeping times and average during consciousness where I can opt to force myself breathe through nose (even if the breathing process itself is not really comfortable as it requires effort on my part to suck air in).
My sepatal deviation is mild and a previous doctor told me that it's normal for most people to have septum deviation and it has nothing to do with breathing so he didn't cure it but rather he just reduced the hypertrophied turbinate using "radio" or whatever it is called that burns some tissues. Unforutnately, I didn't feel any noticeable improvement even after 8 weeks after surgery. The doctor's opinion was that "I should feel improvements"!! which made me feel that this doctor ripped me off for doing almost nothing other than leaving me live in anger and depression for spending money, wasting time, and going through some nose opening operation for NOTHING.
So I decided to go for another doctor who requied me to do a CT Paranasal Sinuses - Full Examination (the previous doctor asked me to do the same examination but it wasn't full - it was just 1 x-ray sheet but the latter doctor required 2 x-ray sheets that capture the nose from different planes). His opinion was different from the previous doctor as he said that he has to cure the deviated septum, reduce turbinates, & reduce Bullosa (since it is full of air as he said!). He required to delay the surgical operation after I come back from travelling since I'll be outside country very soon (on the 8th of October) & this is not enough for him as he said to do the surgery and follow up with me during 1 week only so I'm instructed to wait till I come back & untill that time, I'm trying to collect as many information from the internet as I can since I'm full of doubt, despair, and very frustrated because I'll have to go through another damn operation under general anesthesia and honestly I have almost zero hope of any improvement as I lost faith in doctors. They seem to be contradicted and all they care about is grabbing the maximum amount of money from the patient.
care4health magmag
Posted
I have to agree with you, doctors contradicting each other. I felt the same way when I had my surgery back in 2012, was useless and costed me about $ 4000
I have read about the radio wave surgery, and talked about it with that private ENT and I had the impression that it's not really a good option. And you also confirmed that.
Your mentioned you will be out of the country very soon. It will give you an opportunity to notice if there's any difference. That would be very important to know, because if you have a bit of improvement, that would mean you have severe allergy to something at home.
I am sure that humidity for me was the trigger, so now that I no longer live in that climate at least during the day I can breath almost normal. (most of the time)
If you don't experiece absolutely no difference, that would suggest that it's not allergy. Could very well be that bullosa, I read on someone's post who also had concha bullosa, that the surgery did fix it. If your concha bullosa is quite big, - check the CT report, a surgery might indeed help.
With the turbinectomy, double check with your doctor, because you already had that radio wave, how much can it be reduced further. I'm sure you're aware about the risks: ending up with empty nose syndrome.
Regarding your deviated septum, you said it's deviated to the right. If that was the issue that would mean your nose would be blocked on one side. But yours is blocked on both sides, right? Did you have this breathing problem all your life? or is it suddenly sarted?
I am not a doctor, so I'm just saying as someone who had lot of experiece with ENTs, that some would do extra work on your nose just to get extra more money out of you. I don't know, maybe your doctor is right, but before you go ahead with all these surgeries, I would get another opinion.
The choncha bullosa surgery is is not such a big deal to fix, you won't have much pain, bit uncomfortable the first few days as your nose will be packed up, and for about 2 weeks you have to rinse your nose with saline.
Have you checked if you could have surgery in the public hospital for free?