My Septoplasty Journey - A Journal
· 9 MIN READ
Motivation
I am writing this blog post to mainly log my misery and frustration with this recovery, and hopefully look back on it with fonder thoughts. Before I get into the journals, let me explain why I decided to get this surgery.
In the last year, I’ve focused a lot on self-care and health. In the past, I’d dismiss pains or wonky feelings in my body parts. As I entered 2023/2024, I said no more. I visited the doctors more often. I cleaned up my diet, albeit not a hugely dramatic difference. I started (and am almost done with) my aligner (fufu invisalign) treatment! The next piece of self-care was fixing this damn problem I’ve had all my life: not being able to breathe through both nostrils.
When I say I can’t breathe through both nostrils, I don’t mean it ALL the time. Just most of the time. But that’s annoying enough for 30-year-old me to say “fuck it. let’s get this fixed”. So I went to go see an ENT in 2023. We went through various rounds of diagnostics and treatment to see if non-surgical solutions could fix me. We tried to use rinses, pills, topical ointments… all resulting in little to no relief. My doctor finally concluded that surgically fixing my deviated septum and flushing out my sinuses would do the trick.
So, on March 19 2024, I had my surgery scheduled.
The only problem was… my wife went into labor on March 17th. Our beautiful daughter was born on the 18th, but this also meant that I had to postpone my septoplasty. So after our daughter was 5 weeks old, I was finally ready to do it! I scheduled my surgery for the end of April. Let me take you to surgery day.
Day 0 - Surgery Day (4/26/2024)
I had my surgery at 9AM in the morning, so I arrived at the hospital promptly at 6:45AM to check in. I was brought to be prepped by 8AM and by 8:30AM, I was given my first cocktail of anesthesia. As I’m being wheeled, I feel the anesthesia kick in. Next thing I remember, it was 1PM and everything was already done. The surgery had ended at 11:30AM, and my contacts were promptly notified. I woke up with discomfort but no pain. I was given repeated mustache gauzes to catch any dripping blood. There was a lot. I probably soaked a gauze every 10 minutes. There were complications with my blood pressure and temperature, but those all subsided by the time of discharge. I was discharged around 4:30PM.
When arriving home, my bleeding continued. It seemed to be so bad that I just could not stop leaking. After about 6 hours of continuous bleeding and making contact with Dr Tong (my ENT), I made the decision to go to Lenox Hill’s ER.
Day 1 (Saturday)
I arrived at the hospital around midnight. I was immediately given more nasal spray to try and stop the bleeding. When that didn’t work, I was given an nebulizer with an air drug that is meant to coagulate. Unfortunately, because I could not breathe through the bloody nostril, this didn’t work very well. After a few more hours, around 3:30AM, I was given an IV version of the same thing. The bleeding slowly started to calm down, at least to a manageable level.
Around 6AM, I woke up and was ready to be discharged. I was soaking about 1 pad every 30 minutes, which was very manageable. After making it back home, the recovery was exponential. By noon, a single gauze could probably last me a whole 6 hours without changing. I did still change them just for comfort and to clean it out every so often
Days 2-3 (Sunday, Monday):
The bleeding has become dark red and only really coming out of my left nostril. I’m not quite sure where the bleeding is coming from. I’ve started doing saline rinses, as advised by my doctor. The first rinse was amazing - I saw a bunch of big blood clots come out. I also clogged my right ear somehow, and I wasn’t able to unclog it for a while.
I’ve started to feel headaches. I think it’s from all the pressure that’s building up on my face. It’s pretty uncomfortable, especially when you add in my simultaneous aligner treatment and a newborn baby. Honestly can’t wait to get these splints out though.
Day 4 (Tuesday):
I think today’s headaches were by far the worst. Maybe it was because I didn’t take oxy/tylenol in the middle of the night, but I woke up with excruciating pain! I don’t think I can handle having the aligners in at all, because of the pressure it exerts on the rest of my face! So, I decided to just forgo it and resume my treatment next week. Hopefully, my orthodontist isn’t too angry at me. I’ve been doing rinses every few hours, and they seem to be helping. I can’t seem to figure out why my left nostril is still a bit bloody, but at least it’s easily wiped away. I am no longer using a mustache gauze to catch my drainage.
At night, I felt a pop in my right nostril and then a gush. This resulted in some bloody gauze. I am honestly not sure what transpired here. Did a vessel pop? Was there some mucus stuck back there?
Day 5 (Wednesday):
I woke up this morning with a throbbing headache - the worst one yet. It wouldn’t go away for a few hours, and I just had to lay down. Maybe this was due to the fact that I skipped a round of tylenol in the morning? Not sure. To be safe, I’ve been taking tylenol/oxy around the clock.
When examing my gauze this morning, my right nostril was extremely bloody. It was packed with mucusy dark-red blood. This must have been due to the popping situation that happened last night. I was scared that my nasal rinses were causing issues on my right side but upon texting my ENT, he advised that I should continue to do the rinses. Miraculously, at my next rinse, I was finally able to shoot the saline in one nostril and out the other! This definitely gave me confidence that the nasal rinses were clearing the passageways.
And for the first time in days, I was able to take a semi-solid breath of air through both of my nostrils. It was a glorious feeling… for about 10 minutes. I think mucus had started to build up again and so congestion returned shortly after. Oh well.
Update as of 3PM: I just did another rinse, and for the first time, my nostrils have 0 leftover blood. Not sure how long this will last, but this is surely a great sign.
Day 6 (Thursday):
I didn’t make the same mistake as the other days - I actually took my pain medication at 4AM! So by the time I woke up this morning, I was headache-free. Nice.
Today is much of the same. There continues to be blood on my right side, but it seems to mostly be snot. I have been able to breathe in better than out on my left nostril. It’s not perfect but I’ll take it…
There is only ONE MORE DAY until my splints come out!!! Can’t frickin’ wait.
Day 7 (Friday):
Today’s the big day. I made my way to the ENT for my appointment at 10:45AM, excited for the removal of these nasal splints. I was called in shortly after arriving and waited only a short while for my doctor. He got right to the chase and removed both of my splints within a matter of 15 seconds. The splints were long and clear, and had pieces of dark blood attached to them. Was it painful or unpleasant? Not at all. I actually recorded the video to reminisce, and it has become oddly (and grossly) satisfying to re-watch.
However, it wasn’t over. The truly unpleasant experience came after: the suctioning of my sinuses. Basically, this is the process where the doctor sticks a thin circle rod into your nose and up into your sinuses to get the gunk out. If you’ve ever gotten the uncomfortable COVID-19 PCR test, imagine that but multiplied by 10x. My doctor noted this part is usually so painful that most people pass out, which is why they split up the suctioning into multiple sessions. I’d like to think that I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so I tried to champ through as much as I can. It felt as if a probe was going in and scratching the skin near the back of your eyes. Yes, I did cry during this. I was also unaware that I was supposed to take my oxy prior to this, to help brave through the pain. Upon finding out my stupidity, my doctor gave me a numbing solution, 10 minutes for it to kick in, and continued to excavate.
But aside from that painful suction experience, I felt great. I was able to breathe through both nostrils clearly for the FIRST time in a long time. As I’m typing this up at 9:44PM, I’m exclusively nose-breathing and I am LOVING IT!!! I feel like a brand new person.
Will keep you guys posted on any updates.
Day 8-9 (Saturday, Sunday):
When I woke up on Saturday (day 8 post op, day 1 post splint removal), I was actually somewhat congested! During the night, I would wake up to a dry mouth, which indicated that I was still mouth breathing. A bit disappointed that I wasn’t fully fixed, but on the bright side, I could still get air through both nostrils if I tried. The saving grace here was that once I did a nasal rinse, the gunk inside would come out and I’d have clear nasal passageways again. Whenever I did these rinses, I’d have big chunks of bloody black boogers come out. Oddly satisfying.
As I’m typing this on Sunday, May 5th, I had just finished a nasal rinse and feeling pretty good. If I had to put a percentage to it, 100% being as perfect as I felt on day 7, I’d say this is a 45%. Not bad, but I think there’s going to be a long, slow, gradual journey ahead of me. Also, not sure if I’m going to be writing in this every single day either. Maybe I’ll give weekly updates from now on.