I should have kept my deviated septum
 

Christ, I had no idea it would suck this much.

Thursday, I went in to have my sinus passages Roto-rooted. I had a severely deviated septum, plus my turbinado passages were corkscrewed the wrong way, somehow. This was supposed to dramatically improve congestion, sleep apnea, sinus infections, etc. This was also supposed to be a dinky little "2 hours then we send you home with a few Vicodin" thing, comparable to wisdom tooth extraction, a little tired for the next few days, blah blah blah.

Well, no. My nose just keeps bleeding and bleeding after surgery, and I keep vomiting all the blood I'm swallowing, so new plan, they put me back under that afternoon, repack everything tighter with gauze, cauterize a few things, and wake me up again. I go home and pass out for a few hours, but soon I'm awake and vomiting blood again. We call the doctor, go back to the ER, they put me under again at 2 in the morning and give it the ol' college try once again, cauterizing the shit out of everything and giving me blood clotting agents as well. They send me home with 5 inch gauze sticks jammed up my nose, dangling little tampon strings across my face, and tell me not to take them out until Sunday.

I wish I'd never agreed to this. The Vicodin's pretty good for the pain, but I still feel like shit. Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to correct their deviated septums...

:comfort:

Hope it gets well soon, Clod.

pics or gtfo

but seriously.... sorry, clob. i nose it will get better though. keep your.....chin.....up

Clod, that's disgusting to read and must be a million times worse to live through.
You have my full sympathy. I've never vomited blood, but even normal vomit or a nosebleed feels like the end of the world to me.

Of course I have to add that it's all your own fault because of the Cocaine Years, but you know that anyway.

Wow, Clodfobble, that sounds pretty horrible. I hope it heals up quickly. So this morning you'll be tugging on all those strings and hoping it all comes out without a new gush of blood? Good luck!
:eek:

Eugh. Hope you get better soon!!!

Nasty one clod, be well.

:lol: at the special Cellar blend of sympathy and sarcasm.

Oh gross, you have my utmost sympathy. Those tampons are the worst (that's what they were originally invented for, by the way).

Although when I had my major nosebleed that wouldn't stop, I also managed to get it to come out of my eyes and under my contact lenses..... just trying to give you a little something to aim for for your next trick..... ;)

Very nice on the eyes, monster. Mine have been leaking, but it's clear fluid rather than blood (but not tears, those don't gunk up on my face like this does.)

The tampons came out, very painfully but without a huge gush of blood. I put a dropperfull of vitamin K liquid up each nostril just to be sure. It's kind of at a slow and steady leak, though. My face feels much better, but I do wish I hadn't taken that last Vicodin in the middle of the night. I think it's giving me auditory hallucinations. I keep swearing I can hear very quiet music, at any rate.

My stepkids are here for the long holiday weekend, too. I have to keep finding errands and making Mr. Clod take all the kids with him. Gah, and then they're back next weekend too. Phooey.

I'll try to get a picture for you Jim, once the bruising is nice and purpley.

oh gawd, Clod. How awful for you. I certainly hope you have more than a couple of vics.

good lord, child. I bet you can't think of anything except your sinuses and face and nose.

I"ll send a Snot Angel your way, babeh. Kisses! (but not the Eskimo kind!)
and hugs and this :flower:

Damn feelz Betterer Clod !!

FFS the things the medical community does to us. SMH Sorry that was such a cluster for you ClodFob. I am paranoid to got to a DR for anything...

There has got to be an Ikea 3 hours away from you.

Yeah foot, a bit on the crusty yellow lymph side of things. Now I've become convinced that there's a blood clot lodged on the left (worse) side, since I have the impression that all the ones I've dislodged have come from the right. If I can just loosen it out of there... then I'd have even more disgusting things to describe to you all.

Well, at least you know you're not a vampire.

Time to FESS UP
 

...




my nose.

Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery, that is. I've had the same surgery you had Clodfobble, and I'm dying to have it again. It is the *first thing* on my list to treat myself to once I have health insurance again.

In Jun 2009 I was at work and I had a headache that turned into a toothache that turned into an volcano of an abscessed tooth erupting fiery gushers of pain through my skull and jaw. This turned out to be an incorrect self diagnosis, so it should be read for illustrative purposes only. It turns out I had a seriously impacted (dunno if that's the right word) sinus on the left side, the solution for which was the rotorooter procedure you talked about.

I had an MRI done which revealed a sinus cavity completely full, and sealed, a deviated septum, and hypertrophied turbinates. The plan was to give me a general anesthetic, and through my nose clean out the plug and the sinus, and resection my turbinates (resection is surgery speak for cut away some of). As far as I know, this was done. The anesthesiologist had me count back from 100, 99, 98, 97, why am I in the recovery room and what have you done with my limbs?.

I got a ride home because I was in no pain, and similarly in no condition to drive, thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. I had instructions about after care which I also disregarded probably for the same reason I couldn't drive. Anyhow. I too had the packing in my nose about halfway to the back of my skull, regular slow steady bleeding dripping, ugh. No vomiting though, thankfully. Your experience sounds truly horrible, so sorry. I eventually took the plugs out, too gross to describe accurately. I was very, very sore for days, though I took my medicine faithfully.

One of the aftercare steps I read about but didn't follow to my detriment was the nasal lavage using a bottle like this: NeilMed Sinus Rinse. I like the squeeze bottle style as opposed to the gravity feed style. I didn't use it regularly like I should have. This, I believe, was a big mistake. Clodfobble, if you have a device like this (and your after care instructions say so!) please don't neglect this part. I do it much more frequently now, and I love it.

I've been using it, I think maybe even too much? Everything is very wet in there, I can't get anything to drain. It's like there are giant sponges inside my face, and every time I irrigate I just swell them up further. It has occurred to me that maybe there is, in fact, extra packing in there, lost track of during one of the three procedures. I'm also running a slight temperature at this point, though I am taking my antibiotics faithfully. Long story short, I want to die, basically.

Sounds totally awful Clod. I hope you feel much better soon. xx

Sinus surgery is the worst ... sorry this is so awful for you, Clod. Hope things improve dramatically in the next few hours ...

:( Sorry Clod! Feel better and make sure they get all the packing out if you suspect there's some in there! You don't want that low temperature turning into a serious infection in your head from forgotten packing goo

Yeah, there's already a followup appointment on the schedule for Thursday, so presumably anything they might have left in there will be found then. Dinner did cause some very slight movement of stuff down and out, so I might--MIGHT--be willing to live until tomorrow and see how things pan out. In another week I'll probably be just like BigV and everyone else who told me this was the greatest thing they'd ever done. I hope I hope I hope...

If you don't think you can wait until Thursday, I've got a Wet/Dry Shop-Vac raring to go.

Oh Clod, that sounds very sucky. If you do get the blood out the eyes things, you will be the coolest kid on the block - very True Blood!!

Fingers crossed you will be in your happy place tomorrow!!

Call the doctor. I'm worried about the "face swelling up more" thing.

and the fever.

It's okay Bri, there was some more drainage during the night, and the fever is gone this morning. Now mostly I'm just exhausted. We are speculating that this is where I was supposed to be on day one, had I had the normal one operation instead of three back-to-back. If that's the case, I should expect another 2-3 days like today, and then steady improvement from there.

You know, just in time for Friday, and another weekend with my stepkids. :rolleyes:

Your finger is so not sorry about your nose.

What do you do when your nose goes on strike?

Picket!

Thanks folks, I'll be here all week. Try the nose goblins; they're salty and have a slight metallic taste

Sorry you are going through all this Clod! I definitely hope you see the improvement you want!

Oooow, damn. Wish I was closer, I couldn't make it better but could make you not care. :neutral:

The saline solution used in that rinse bottle comes in little packets, but I ran out of those. I switched to a small amount of regular salt in warm water. I use a little pile in my palm about as big around as a quarter and this is mixed in a cup that holds two bottles' worth.

The squeezing and swishing and snorting and coughing and snotting and spitting... all totally worth it. I usually do two bottles each time, in sequence. I bend over the tub or the sink when I'm doing it. It's gross. But it cleans out that area in a way that just blowing my nose does not. Really, follow your after care instructions, especially if they include this step.

As for why I want to do this again, I think the sinus did get uncorked, did get drained, turbinates did get resectioned... but. But there's still a lingering chronic infection of some kind (fungal perhaps? that word was used at the beginning of this whole ordeal).

This part's gross. . . you might want to move on to the next post.

...








...

Ok.

Sometimes, my left sinus fills up with mucus, sometimes very watery, like water. But it's not clear, like normal, it's the color of a manila folder yellowy, sometimes with a greenish tinge. The hell of it is, I can't tell it's filling up until I lean over like you might when you would look under the table for something that's fallen on the floor. Then I get a pouring out of this mucus, drip drip drip, at the pace of a good nosebleed. Sometimes I can smell/taste it, not really appetizing. urgh.

Blowing my nose is necessary at this point, but it's usually just a temporary measure for a couple reasons. The biggest one is because of our anatomy. It's very difficult to get a sinus to drain because of the tortuous shape of the passages from sinus to nose/throat. Also, as more of the mucus actually flows through my nose, over the course of hours, it gets more exposure to air (more than in the sinus where it's generated) and it thickens, giving me half a snotty nose from hell. Blowing and rinsing and wiping and rubbing... ugh. The combination of breathing difficulty and running/dripping snot... I want another plan to cure/cauterize/fill with epoxy/I don't fucking care, just do something. It's misery.

(really gross part)

Sometimes, when I blow my nose, I get great relief. I find a giant, flat-ish mostly crusty booger in the tissue and it often has a wet hole in it. This is the not-quite-fully-cemented-shut opening of the ostia from my sinus to my nasal passages. This has happened enough for me to know that the crap is coming from the sinus like a goddamn ever-flowiing artesian spring of snot. Something's going on in there that has to be stopped. It never happens on the right side. I'm not sick. There's something IN THERE causing this reaction.

After I have a thorough rinse, I always have water stuck in my nasal passages. Sometimes even hours later, when I tip my head this way or that, drops of water pour out. It takes awhile for the water to get out, either from my nose or my throat.
....


Ok. I don't know why you had your surgery done Clod. Were you having breathing problems? Sinus trouble like mine? Something else? Right now, I don't have the same problem that sent me to the doctor in the first place, but I do have basically the same symptom, some uncontrolled source of trouble in my sinus that my body responds to as described above. Additionally, I find that the turbinate reduction I had done on the right side *has* improved my ability to breathe through that side. It does still sometimes close up, as happens to everyone. The swelling of those tissues is not controllable. Some swelling, periodic and temporary is normal. But I have less tissue on that side so it doesn't swell shut as often or as easily. When I go back, I'll have the same thing done on the left side as well as whatever needs to be done to clear up the "infection" in the sinus.

Here are a couple links to useful information about what's going on in your nose/sinuses/throat/etc. Also, a couple videos that I found useful for helping me visualize what the shapes inside my head looked like.





http://www.surgery.com/procedure/end...-sinus-surgery

http://www.ask.com/wiki/Semilunar_hiatus

I hope you get better soon, Clod! :hug:

Maybe they forgot to take out your packing stuff too??

...Or nose gremlins... I see them all the time on Mucinex commercials. They seem like jerks.

The reason I originally went in, way long ago, is a condition called Patulous Eustachian Tubes. On the one hand, this condition has probably helped me be a better voiceactor and sound engineer. On the other hand, as it progresses with age, it tends to lead to more uncomfortable symptoms, like the severe, chronic tinnitus that my mother now lives with (from whence I apparently got the genetics for said gigantic eustachian tubes.) It would seem that I am due for her fate someday, so I went in just to talk to them about it, and see if there was anything I could do now that would slow the progression and just sort of keep things where they are forever.

The doctor (who is the same lady who took out Minifob's tonsils, and has done work on several other friends and their kids, and whom I trust completely,) noted my deviated septum, and the fact that my turbinates were not only sort of thin and swollen, but that they actually spun the wrong direction. It's a pair of corkscrews, that are supposed to mirror each other and spin upward and outward, but she showed me on the CAT scan how my turbinates rotate inward, which has probably contributed to a lifetime of mild congestion. It's not horrific, it's just always there 100% of the time--I told her I didn't feel like I had problems with congestion, and then she sprayed this industrial-strength decongestant all way up the back of my nose, and all this drainage came out, and it was like, "Oh, is this what it feels like for normal people to breathe? Huh."

Anyway, she said that there really isn't much she can do about the eustachian tubes until the problem is bad enough to warrant a surgery to try to close them manually (which isn't what I want right now, but by the way, I'm going to send my mother in to see you...) BUT she convinced me that solving the chronic congestion and deviated septum would lead to less swelling in the area, and that could quite possibly slow the lifelong stretching of my eustachian tubes. Or not. But it was a good thing for me to do, in any case. And all these people I know were telling me about how they had done it, and it had been such an easy procedure, life-altering, etc. etc.

I'm embarrassed to admit that, in the end, the deciding factor was that we've met our out-of-pocket maximum for the year. Anyone in the family can get any procedure done before the end of the year, and it's completely free. So all the things we think we'll probably have to get done in the next 2 years, we're trying to make them happen before December. I figured, why not, throw the sinus thing in there too.

Except now I know why not. :) It's okay, I am slowly getting better. I'm sure that, if I hadn't been such a bleeder, my experience would have been the same as other people's. No one was expecting me to be a hemophiliac only in my nose and nowhere else.

definitely get both your rotator cuffs done. Usually they'll only do one per year because it takes that long to regain the use of your arm, but tell them you are in a hurry, and mr. cold will wipe you.

Life altering. 100% guaranteed

Yeah, Mr. Clod's shoulder is on the list, though I'm pretty sure he's only going to be interested in doing the one that hurts. :) And of course now both my stepkids need endoscopic biopsies to confirm celiac. There are a surprising number of procedures we came up with, when we really thought about it. Mr. Clod wants LASIK, but I won't let him because I think glasses are hot.

I hope you feel better soon, Clod.

Yeeeeaaahhh. My wife had this done, and they mislead her, too. she didn't have the multiple surgery thing, but she vomitted and was flat on her back for about 4 days. That was prolly 8 years ago, and she doesn't regret it. I'm thinking about having it done - I get too many sinus infections and have ear pain.

Lot's of complaints post-LASIK, and glasses ARE hot!

Yeah, I had it done in 1998, and it was awesome, I would definitely make the same choice... but I was starting from legally-blind with severe astigmatism, so it was a major quality of life issue for me. Mr. Clod's prescription is like basic reading glasses, -1.25 diopters or some nonsense, and I've warned him he could easily regress that much after the surgery anyway. I've regressed to the point that I need thin little glasses most of the time now, but it's nothing like it was before.

What about getting the lasik and wearing plano lenses?

j/k -1.25 that's not much of a prescription.

Glad you are feeling better Clod, that was truly crummy! I've heard horror stores about that procedure too...they totally lie to you, I think.."Oh, it will be fine...a few days of minor discomfort." Yeah, right.

I had lasik too and had a few problems, the first attempt only got me to 20/40. But after the second attempt, my right eye is practically 20/20, and I think my left eye is close, but it is suffering more astigmatism and so my vision is always just slightly off. Ive gotten used to it. My close vison went down the tubes, though, so I have reading glasses stashed EVERYWHERE. But I am fifty, so I just blame it on age. I started off as bad as you, I think. Really, really high nearsightedness and astigmatism. So I am definitely much BETTER OFF.

WARNING: completely disgusting medical picture to follow.



















So I'm working with the nasal rinse to flush out some of the remaining junk and blood clots, and I've got a pretty good rhythm going, spraying and sucking and spitting and blowing, lots of progress being made.

At some point, I blow casually into the Kleenex, and pop, this relatively gigantic plastic roll comes out, like a message in a bottle. It actually isn't plastic, it feels like a thick gelatin, the kind of thing that's supposed to be left inside and dissolve in a short period of time. My guess is that they wallpapered my sinuses with it/them in an attempt to stop the bleeding, and this one sprung back into shape instead of sticking. I'm going to have the doctor check for one on the other side though, just in case.

um, ew?

I know, right? And the first thing I had to do was take a picture of it.

but of course.

need a recipe for it?

Haggis!

kinda gross. but, GAWD, doesn't it feel better now?


notacompetition notacompetition notacompetition notacompetition

Isn't it a little small for that?

Wow. That's actually cool.

You had no idea that was in there? And they couldn't tell you? "Oh, by the way, if a shrinky dink comes out of your nose, don't be alarmed."

Maybe if you put it in water it'll expand into a six inch shark in 24 hours?

None whatsoever. My nose still feels swollen almost completely shut even now, but never did I have a sensation of something moving about.

You could try cured salted pork plugs. :eek:

Are you kidding me??? :eyebrow:

WTF "special circumstances" lead you to shove pork tampons up a four-year-old's schnoz???

Probably something like, "oh shit, the hemophiliac boy is bleeding out again, we're in the middle of nowhere on our way to market with the cured saltpork, and he's already saturated all our handkerchiefs and rags."

As a veteran nosebleeder even before all this, I can confirm that when it starts flowing, it gets very bloody very fast. The miracle solution I started using in recent years was to douse my tissue in liquid vitamin K before cramming it up there, which stops it immediately (and doesn't waste good bacon either.) I mentioned this to the doctor and even brought the bottle the third time we went back to the ER so she could put in on the nose tampons she was ging to use, but she wasn't comfortable using it just on my say so.

Bacon saves lives.

My understanding is that Vitamin K is used in about 7 different ways at different parts of the coagulation cycle, and that most of these processes happen (or are available to happen) rather instantaneously within all cells, not at a central organ or over a long period of time. Wiki goes over my head, but seems to be saying this:

By putting it on my opened/bleeding vessels, I have put it in my bloodstream, faster than I would have if I'd eaten it. The only question is, how fast can the cycle from glutamate to Gla operate? I will say that I have to leave the nose plug in for about 5-7 minutes for the bleeding to stop, but it only takes the one--without the vitamin K in there, it just soaks the noseplug in about 30 seconds and keeps right on going. I've had gushing nosebleeds that last 45 minutes, no matter how much pressure I put on them.

That's good to know, i must get some, thanks

Eeeew, that's yucky.

But fascinating! Thanks C.

Makes sense I s'pose. Speed and cocaine work differently depending on what part of the body absorbs them.