I had a doctor basically remove everything from my nose that could be removed including a bunch of the turbinates. It’s great I can actually breathe through it now.
I had this recommended for me, but the risk of empty nose syndrome scared the shit out of me.
It can happen, but the way most ENTs train these days, unlikely. I’ve seen it twice that I recall off the top of my head, but very rare these days.
Most ENTs, including myself, are overly cautious. You’re at a higher risk for symptom recurrence because of under resection.
That being said, I wouldn’t let an oral surgeon or general plastic surgeon touch my family member’s nose (unless they had a very very good reputation). Nothing wrong with their work, I’m just not sure they had the same training and respect for the nose.
Yeah, inferior turbinate reduction is the next small step for this. Often if it’s just alternating nasal obstruction that’s good enough. Oftentimes there’s another component of nasal valve collapse or septal deviation. Personally, in my population, I end up doing septorhinoplasty (nose job) way more often than other smaller nasal surgery.
You don’t want them to actually remove the turbinates, however. We generally just shrink them down – removing them makes the nasal air less turbulent, and difficult to sense airflow. TL;DR it make look like you can drive a semi truck through the nose, but people will feel like they cannot breathe at all. People have killed themselves over this.
