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Beverly Hills Nose Job Problems
By admin | December 31, 2009
“My Friends All Have Trouble Breathing After Their Nose Jobs”
– patient consulting for nasal cosmetic plastic surgery
This is a very important statement. If a prospective patient believes that the majority of patients who have cosmetic nasal surgery are likely to wind up with breathing problems, then our specialty has a problem.
Difficulty breathing after rhinoplasty should not necessarily occur. The competent cosmetic plastic nasal surgeons are trained in the evaluation of the internal nasal structure and the correction thereof. They need to know if there is a breathing problem before any surgery. Often, patients are not even aware they have a breathing problem. It is very easy to check because you ask the patient to close one nostril and with lips closed breathe through their right nostril and then shift the focus to the left nostril as the right nostril is closed. Very quickly, one gets the airflow picture.
Once the diagnosis of airway obstruction is established, it is incumbent upon the operating surgeon to figure out why. The most common reasons are that there is a deviated septum which is a crookedness of the internal vertical partition that separates the two nasal passages. For many patients, particularly those with allergies, there is also the issue of enlarged turbinates, particularly the inferior turbinate. Turbinates are the three shelf-like extensions that fill a portion of the nasal passages, on each side, to increase the surface area so there is further warmth, humidification and filtering of the incoming air in preparation for inhalation into the lungs.
If the surgeon diagnoses a breathing problem or such borderline breathing that it is possible that narrowing of the nose as a result of the cosmetic nasal plastic surgery, or rhinoplasty, might throw the patient’s breathing over the edge, it is incumbent upon that surgeon to plan to deal with the blockage and correct it.
My sense is that perhaps a fair number of surgeons who are willing to take on rhinoplasty cases may not be trained in the functional and reconstructive surgery.
If the doctor’s ego will allow it, when facing an airway problem that he feels he cannot address, the doctor can always call in a consulting surgeon with the “inside” skills to perform that portion of the operation. After all, it is not unique to cosmetic and reconstructive nasal plastic surgery to have a team instead of a solo surgeon. It certainly occurs in heart surgery and liver and kidney transplants, etc. It is all for the patient’s benefit.
The recent edition of The New York Times happened to address that very issue whereby some surgeons conceded that it is “normal” to have a breathing problem after some cosmetic nasal surgeries. I think that is a very damning comment and represents a lack of concern for the patient’s interest. Steps must be taken to correct the breathing problem at the same time as the cosmetic plastic nasal surgery.
Topics: Cosmetic Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic Surgery, Home, Nose Surgery, Rhinoplasty, Rhinoplasty Specialist, Septoplasty | No Comments »