Smile for the birdy.......

by Byron, Sunday, April 13, 2014, 11:50 (3820 days ago)

The last two years I have been increasingly congested and the redhead I sleep with tells me my snoring is getting worse rapidly and I am black and blue from her hitting me at night to get me to roll over.

No bueno.

Friday I met with one of the best ENT surgeons in Kansas City for the "cure". This guy is very young but all my "doctor to doctor...inside skinny" research brought him straight to the top. I was instantly comfortable with him when we met and became moreso as the visit went on.

Exam showed a small polyp on the right side, hypertrophic turbinates bilaterally and deviated septum (from getting my nose well broken when I was 16 and talking when I should have been listening) when added together caused the congestion.

Exam show hypotonic soft palate allowing the vibration causing the snoring.

He says, "this is all real easy to fix, lets do it now. You are the last patient of the day, we can relax with this, I have some new equipt I haven't tried out yet, we have some new docs here today that would like to attend and normally we don't do sinus and palate work at the same time but you look plenty tough enough. This will be fun".......

I said, "I have health insurance but it has a $10,000 deductible so I am planning on writing you a cheque. What is this going to cost?" Young Dr says "Well since we trying out this new debrider on you we'll"....and then shot me a price that was just too good to refuse.

Bingo, we have a winner.

He meticulously explained the procedure and started numbing me up. Interestingly how old memories come back and when he shot the numb juice up my nose I instantly remembered the feel and taste of the cocaine they used to numb me in 1968 when my nose was mashed all over my face. He said it was not cocaine but close enough that it didn't matter. Worked like a charm. Shot a bunch of pain killers into my soft palate and let the magic happen. 20 minutes later I had no sensation at all from my ears forward and very little above my shoulders.

Time to get to work.

First the Palate. He said "this is 50% ethanol that will cause swelling and scaring of the soft palate tissue when injected, as it heals it will cause a scar that will stiffen and contract the palate and stop the vibration. Most offices don't do it because there is no money in it but it works great, better that anything else we know of". (My research confirms this statement...some research papers state 90% effectiveness).

He used a needle that looked like a bicycle spoke and even though I thought I as "comfortably numb" hurt like hell. Took about 2 minutes and I as done.

Then he went to work up my nose with a gizmo that looked like a big fancy dremal tool with suction and a fiber-optic camera. There was very little sensation with this and apparently went very well given the comments from the two other (very) young attending doctors about how much better the air way looked and how super the new gizmo was working.

That was done and he said we only have a couple of minutes left to correct the deviated septum which was done with a shiny little flat tool. Again, there was little sensation, however the crunching sound of him breaking my nose was a bit un-nerving.

And that was that and we were done. While I think that I can hang with the toughest hombres around, by then I was pretty much played out and actually shaking pretty good. My wife came back and almost fainted when they pulled these 4" long bloody tampons out of nose and pronounced me good to go.

He indicated that he is a medical minimalist and only prescribes pain control is severe cases and did not think I would need any.

He said that the research shows that many benefit with another round of palate injections is 8 weeks and would be in touch if that was needed.

We did hang around a while to get my wits back and headed out.

Yesterday I was bleeding like a stuck pig, upset stomach from swallowing all the blood and had a headache and sore throat from hell. Just really miserable.

Today, there is no pain (I am taking no pain meds at all), my nose is hardly bleeding at all and it feel like I have peanut struck to the roof of my mouth from the swelling.

Breathing through my nose is the best I can truly ever remember, it feels like it feels after using a decongestant like Afrin. While he said the snoring might get worse before it gets better, Teresa says I have not snored at all since I got home.

I think I lucked out here. In 20 years of watching my patients go through this kind of work, I see poor to worse results and many say it was a mistake...should have lived with it.

Blind pig finds an acorn once in a while.

Color me happy

Byron