Four Reasons for and Four Sinus Surgery

Sinus surgery is the last result after several methods of non-surgical and medicated infection and obstruction relief have been applied. When sinus surgery is needed it comes with the usual possibility of complications but it can also provide long term relief to improve breathing and sinus drainage as well.

If you've been blowing your nose every morning for years, if you use breathing strips to breath at night, and if you've been taking sinus medication or antibiotics for months or years, it's time to consider what sinus surgery can do to improve your sinus health and comfort. There are invasive procedures that can accompany other major structural issues in the nasal cavity and there are non-invasive options that interest people with infection, blockage, and breathing concerns only. Regardless of your discomfort or reasoning for concerns of what is going on with your sinuses, there is a way to achieve relief with or without surgery. The first step is to visit a otolaryngology also known as an ear, nose and throat specialist. He or she will either perform or be consulted on your particular surgery whether you require it alone or are having it with a cosmetic procedure.

The two main objectives in the performance of sinus surgery are to improve proper drainage and breathing. Yet, there are allergy and sinus sufferers, of varying ages, that wonder about how a sinus condition can get to the stage of recommended or required surgical intervention. There are four main surgical procedures for sinus drainage improvement known as functional endoscopic, image-guided endoscopic, balloon sinuplasty and Caldwell-Luc surgery. An ear, nose and throat specialists utilize image-guided endoscopic technique for structural abnormalities. The balloon sinuplasty is where a balloon catheter is moved into the sinus, the balloon is inflated, and a saline solution is squirted into the sinus cavity to wash out the mucus. Finally the catheter is removed. This can be completed with general or local anesthesia depending upon the level of blockage. Lastly the Caldwell-Luc technique is now predominantly used for the removal of tumors because it involves the most invasive incision within the cheekbone. So, what leads to all of this surgery talk?

First of all, sinus surgery is the last result after many non-surgical medications and infection techniques have been applied that are designed to alleviate pressure, clogs and bacteria. There are several conditions that sinus sufferers can be dealing with. Sinusitis is the development of inflammation of the nasal sinus tissue or walls. This involves inflammation of the paranasal sinuses as the result of a viral, bacterial or fungal infection after a cold but it won't get better. Those patients dealing with a polyp or cyst is a sac of enlarged tissue protruding from a mucous membrane that blocks the nasal passageway preventing proper sinus drainage or easy breathing and aren't responding well to steroid nasal sprays. A chronic sinusitis is when the inflammation of the sinuses is constant or recurring and aggressive antibiotic treatment is ineffective for 12 weeks or longer. An allergic reaction can cause weakening to the immune system. Infection, allergies, and damaged to the septum or other delicate bones in that area can lead to sinus surgery too.

The good news is that after any one of the sinus surgery options listed above, patients have been shown to experience years of relief. You can be one of them if you've been suffering or medicated for years.