Ongoing sinus issues

scenestealer · Post by **scenestealer** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:04 pm

And thanks for the doctor recommendation. I might do that, even though San Ramon is probably two hours from me. Does anyone have any doctor recommendation for the North Bay of the San Francisco bay area?

I've been seeing a Dr. Homicz, who is pretty good but doesn't seem to know a whole lot about CPAP, and I can't tell if his eagerness to operate is because it honestly is the best option, or if that's just all he knows how to do for it.

sharon1965 · Post by **sharon1965** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:28 pm

The doctor had said that nasonex took a while to reach maximum effectiveness hence the period. I had gone to him 6 months or so back to seek a referral to an ENT spec.

ah, dsm, thanks for explaining...still, even after the six months, would you need to continue using it? when my sleep doc prescribed my cpap he also prescribed me nasonex, but i had bad side effects immediately and he told me to stop using it...of course, that was before anyone got the bright idea to look up my nose and see my severely deviated septum...now that it's fixed, that stuff is all a thing of the past (knock on wood )

On another note, if I do the septoplasty surgery, my doc wanted to also take out my tonsils, and was talking about the possibility of a palette shave at the same time (though I've yet to determine if my insurance will cover that, or deem it "experimental"). He said I shouldn't get my hopes up, but there's a possibility those things in combination will cure me of sleep apnea. I have a feeling they won't, just because I have a tongue like Gene Simmons, and it probably lolls back into my throat...

EEEEK!! you may receive lots of responses about that surgery idea, scenestealer...most people around here are vehemently opposed...the tonsils don't sound so serious, but there have been many discussions on these boards about the idea of opening up a bigger hole for tissue (ie your gene simmons-like tongue) to fall back into a (jen, a member who goes by 'socknitster' recently had her tonsils out, but hers were enormous and often touched in the middle, and caused her many problems)...as far as the palette shaving goes-- YIKES!! sounds awful, and, again, not a terribly high success rate...especially since they really have no way of knowing exactly how much to shave...no, i'm thinkin' no thanks
but, it's your therapy, you have to make your own decisions...there are many posts on these boards on the subject though, maybe you should search it
i really hope you get this sorted...chronic sinus problems can be a real barrier to achieving success on cpap, but many folks around here have found solutions...best of luck to you!
sharon

scenestealer · Post by **scenestealer** » Sun Aug 26, 2007 10:52 pm

Well that's good to know about all the "experimental" stuff actually being fairly experimental. Sounds like a huge drag to me too, but then if it ACTUALLY cured me, it might be worth it.

But I'm also a singer/songwriter - an my voice is already getting messed up by the dryness. But I don't know if I'm willing to take the chance that I might mess up my voice or have to relearn how to form notes, which some of those surgeries seem like they might risk...

Then again, if I had any sort of assurances that the surgeries would work (which I'll never get), not having this rather large impediment to getting back to dating would be nice...

sharon1965 · Post by **sharon1965** » Mon Aug 27, 2007 8:36 am

Then again, if I had any sort of assurances that the surgeries would work (which I'll never get), not having this rather large impediment to getting back to dating would be nice...

scenestealer
judging by your avatar, cpap isn't your only impediment to dating!

lol, no, i know that's davy jones...i have kids, i've sat through all of those movies...

but seriously, what are you referring to as an impediment? i hope you don't mean your cpap/interface ensemble....it's really very sexy and certainly spices things up...ok, no, that's not true...but if that's what you mean, there are also many discussions on these boards about dating and cpap, being single and cpap, there might even be some about sex and cpap, though not at the same time many people who are not already attached have lamented this extra sleepwear, but there are always many more people who can reassure them; just as there are many attached people who worried but found their spouses/partners/signficant others/marital equivalents etc. more than supportive...and those who found them less than supportive found out something important about their relationships...i can think of one member who broke off an engagement but is now relieved that she did; in a way, being on the hose is a good screening tool, helps weed out the superficial...i think if you search 'dating' you may find many posts...

as far as assurance that the surgery will work, i think most of those only offer 50% success rate at best; and as for actually curing osa, again, if yours is obstructive, you may just be opening yourself up for more (pun intended)...but i'm no expert...i think it's snoredog who has a great explanation for what can happen with surgery, you might want to search that, too

forgive me for sending you off on all these searches...if you don't want to spend the rest of your life searching threads, you could also stick around, these issues resurface from time to time

and i'm sure if you do stick around i won't always be the one trying to tell you what to do
sharon

scenestealer · Post by **scenestealer** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 12:47 am

Oh such a miserable night last night. Sometime after my last post, I started developing severe sinus pain in my right nasal passage - ironically, it seems, BECAUSE it was completely open finally. I was hoping it would pass, and so I passed the point when I probably should have done something, like do a sinus rinse, which probably would have stuffed me up, but might have relieved the pain.

The pain wound up so bad that I felt dizzy and nauseous and wound up having a short spell of dry heaving. Of course, by that point, I had finally grabbed some of my old pain medication and was hoping not to throw it up. Wound up taking a hot bath for like an hour and immersing my head for most of the time with just my mouth above the water line.

Even after the pain subsided enough to sleep, I couldn't wear my mask last night - the feeling of inflating that delicate area was just too painful to bear, and I slept last night without my mask. My eyes are all sunken today, and I'm pretty out of it.

But I think my nasal passages might finally be opening up. They were more open today than usual, so I'm hoping that whatever happened last night was a one-time thing, maybe from opening up an area that had been congested for a year and a half?

ozij · Post by **ozij** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:42 am

scenestealer wrote:Well that's good to know about all the "experimental" stuff actually being fairly experimental. Sounds like a huge drag to me too, but then if it ACTUALLY cured me, it might be worth it.

But I'm also a singer/songwriter - an my voice is already getting messed up by the dryness. But I don't know if I'm willing to take the chance that I might mess up my voice or have to relearn how to form notes, which some of those surgeries seem like they might risk...

Then again, if I had any sort of assurances that the surgeries would work (which I'll never get), not having this rather large impediment to getting back to dating would be nice...

Joan Sutheralnd, one of the greatest voices of all times in opera, had a bad sinus condition and was operated on - I think it was in the late 50s - when she was at the relative beginning of her carreer.

O.