Friday, May 07, 2010

Second surgery for nasal polyps

Anyone who has followed my minimal posts here has known that since October 2005 I've suffered from anosmia and nasal polyps. My first surgery for nasal polyps was in January of 2006. I'd say it was successful in regards to removing the polyps but as to returning my sense of smell, not so much.

I was told at the time to follow a strict regimen of nasal rinsing, allergy shots and corticosteroid sprays in the hope that the nasal polyps would not return and that my sense of smell would.

We can fast forward from 2006 until late 2008. During that time my sense of smell would come and go but I'd say that I had virtually no sense of smell or taste other than an occasional moment. I kept up with the nasonex and/or flonase sprays and nasal irrigation and also kept going for my allergy shots.

In November of 2008 my wife and I moved to a different area in southern California and I began noticing serious sinus issues. Extreme stuffiness, constant discharge, worsening of what few asthma symptoms I'd had and an overall feeling that my sinus situation was getting worse.

Being that I am loathe to see a doctor, it took some time before I had my allergist take a look at me. Sometime in late 2009 I scheduled an appt and he saw a large polyp in my left nostril plus what he described as a sinus infection and got me back on Flonase which I'd pretty much stopped using at that point.

For the next few months, my condition worsened to the point that I was spending most nights in a sleepless state due to the congestion in my nose. Breathing was almost impossible and life since early 2010 has been somewhat of a depressing state.

As I've blogged about in the past, the fact that I enjoy more than my share of cocktails and cigars did not help matters. It's obvious that any alcohol is a vasodilator for me and only worsens congestion.

Matters only got worse so about 8 weeks ago I finally went to a new ENT in my new area. He did some observations and scheduled a CT scan which revealed massive polyp growths in both nasal passages and all sinus cavities filled with both polyps and infection. He was pretty astounded that I'd been living this way for the length of time I had been.

Needless to say, surgery was scheduled! May 3rd 2010 was the big day! 5 days prior I started a 50mg/day dose of prednisone which of course had a nice effect but considering the condition of my sinuses, very little olfaction returned.

By Sunday night, May 2nd I was so tired of feeling the way I had been for so long that even though I was nervous, I was ready for surgery.

As a side note, my current ENT had informed me that while he uses FESS and rarely needs to pack after surgery, it is always a possibility. Since I'd been down this road before and my first surgery was FESS and required no packing, I was looking forward to a quick recovery.

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