You sneeze often; suffer from repeated sinus infections and of course, your partner is constantly nagging about your loud snoring. You might have ignored these things as part of life which may not warrant any treatment, but did you know that these could be
deviated septum symptoms? In case this is sounding alien, it might help you to know more about deviated septum, what it is and how it can be cured as having an in-depth knowledge about deviated septum symptoms could lead you on to the right treatment and faster cure.
Most of us do not pay much attention to the nose, except for its outward appearance. This is because any deformity inside the nasal cavity is not apparent till there are problems with normal breathing. While there could be a number of causes for breathing difficulties one of the common causes is a deviated septum.
What is a deviated septum? To know this, you have to recall the structure of the nasal cavity. There is a thin separating structure covered with mucous membrane that divides the nostril in two halves the right and the left nostril. This divider is called the septum. Ideally, it should divide the nostril in two equal haves, but it is rarely so. In fact, according to Mayo Clinic close to 80% of people have their septum misaligned, meaning the septum is deviated, dividing the nostrils into two unequal halves. This situation is called deviated septum.
When the septum is not strictly in the center, one nostril is obviously going to be narrower than the other one and this can cause breathing problems as the deviated septum restricts the normal air flow during breathing. Interestingly deviated septum is common but the wrong alignment may not be significant. Therefore, it may go completely unnoticed as the individual does not even realize that he or she has a deviated septum.
But when the deviation is significant, it can result in various kinds of deviated septum symptoms.
Deviated septum symptoms: how to identify them?
As mentioned earlier, you may not even know that you have a deviated septum, if the deviation is minor. However, when the tilting of the septum is significant, you may notice the following developments:
Difficulty in breathing that gets aggravated when you have a cold or suffer from allergies.
Congestion in the nasal passage and post-nasal drips. This happens because of inadequate drainage from the sinuses, because of the narrowed passage. This also marks the beginning of developing recurrent sinus infections as well as chronic sinusitis.
Improper drainage of sinus fluids could result in pain on the face and cheek region, headaches, etc.
Snoring due to obstructed air flow.
You could also experience frequent bleeding from the nose.
Though there are several non-surgical treatment options for treating deviated septum symptoms, more often than not,
deviated nasal septum surgery is the only treatment that is found feasible. Septoplasty is the surgery of choice for treating this condition. Done with either local or general anesthesia, deviated nasal septum surgery takes between 60and 90 minutes to complete.
The expected
septal surgery results are no different from other types of nasal surgery and may involve bleeding, pain, discomfort as well as infection at the site. However all these after-effects range between mild to moderate and are easily brought under control with the relevant post-surgical medications.
