My balloon sinuplasty experience

What is a balloon sinuplasty you might ask? We'll get to that in a minute. If you suffer from sinus problems, you're gonna want to stick around.

After suffering with allergies for most of my adult life, I decided it was time to take action. I made an appointment with a very well-known ENT in my area with the hopes of tackling my biggest problems: sinus headaches, congestion, constant sniffling, and sneezing (I sneeze like Sneezy from Snow White--hehe).

✅ The first appointment:

As soon as I walked into my consultation, they sat me at a CT scan machine and scanned my head. I really liked this. Not that I enjoy x-ray beams being pulsed through my head, but it was comforting to know that my doctor would actually be diagnosing what I had, not making speculations. Also--no setting up extra appointments, convenience is a real plus. We got off to a great start.

After the CT, I was whisked off to an exam room, where the nurse proceeded to spray this god-awful decongestant up my nose. That spray was like magic, I must admit. It really cleared my sinuses up...but I wouldn't take that stuff voluntarily if you paid me to. It tasted extremely bitter and I broke out into a coughing fit that left me in tears. I shudder just thinking about it.

In comes the doc. Very friendly, and I can tell by the constant video loop on the TV in the exam room that he's been doing this for a while. After he introduces himself, he pulls my CT scan up on the computer screen. WHOA. It's been like 20 minutes since they scanned my face. I tell him all my symptoms, and he points out on the scan that my sinus passages are extremely narrow, which likely contributes to all the symptoms I have. He recommends I undergo allergy testing and a balloon sinuplasty. Again, thanks to the TV in the room I was watching as my cough explosion subsided, I knew what that was in great detail. The Doc said it was a simple procedure, in and out in an hour, and some patients even fall asleep during it. He basically made the procedure sound like a walk in the park.

Here's the procedure in a nutshell: It's a procedure they do at the office without anesthesia. They go into your sinus passages with some sort of tube with a deflated balloon-type object attached to the end. They go through your nose into your narrow cavities and inflate the balloon, essentially breaking the rice-crispie like bones surrounding the sinuses. They then trim down some inflamed tissue in the sinuses --and presto! You have permanently open sinus passages. Yippee!

I was sold. I wanted this. I wanted to breathe! I set the next appointment he had available.

I conducted endlesss research leading up to my procedure and I could not find one first hand account of what it was like. The doctor briefed me in detail, but I wanted to read more about what people had actually experienced. I couldn't find that, so I had to be okay with believing what the doctor told me and hoping for the best. This is actually one of the reasons I was inspired to start this blog! I felt this was something I needed to share for people considering this procedure.

👃🏼Procedure day:

I'm not going to bore you with medication schedules the night before and morning of the procedure, but there were at least 5 different medications that had to be taken at very specific intervals. Luckily, they sent a checklist home with me.

I was perfectly fine before the procedure, despite having taken a pretty significant dose of Vicodin. The PA crushed up another pill, put it under my tongue, and the rest kind of fades in and out.

Here's what I remember during the procedure (warning ⚠️ I'm going into great detail here. If you are easily grossed out, skip to the next section. If you are easily grossed out, but having this procedure--you need to read on. Sorry!):

• I was definitely not sleeping. Not the whole time anyway. I feel like I was conscious for most of it, even if I mostly remember the no-so-fun parts.

• Every time the balloon inflated, I definitely felt it. I also heard my bones crunching. It was very unpleasant, but not painful. Uncomfortable (lots of pressure) and unsettling, but no pain.

• There was an uncomfortable feeling in my throat, like I was choking, and I was able to somehow indicate this to a PA during the procedure. She told me to swallow, but I couldn't (later I realized my throat was numb because of the extra numbing agents they use in my nose). It was an accumulation of blood and other fluids building up in my throat, and it really sucked that I couldn't do anything about it.

• One nice thing I remember is that anytime I would groan in discomfort, someone would rub my arm in a very loving and comforting way.

• Next thing I remember, I was being taken to my car in a wheelchair and the nurse was giving my Husband post-op instructions. I was also spitting blood into one of those plastic pink curved container things the rest of the day.

😷 Recovery

See that emoji I put there? That is what I looked like when I left the doctor. That is what I would look like for about 4 days straight. Gauze at your nostrils 24/7. You have to do a saline rinse every hour, and you bleed pretty heavily for the first day or so. After that, it dies down gradually, but you have to keep your nose moist for recovery and take a couple of nasal sprays.

I had pain in my face and nose on the second and third day. It was very sore, like I had been punched. I didn't expect this, because I specifically asked the doctor if this would happen, and he said no.

One thing I just have to mention is the sneezing instructions. You are not supposed to sneeze or blow your nose for 4 days following the procedure. If you have to sneeze, they say to sneeze through your mouth. Here's the thing--I typically sneeze through my mouth, but I was SO TERRIFIED of sneezing, I scared away about 7 sneezes in that time frame. I did not let one out until probably a week after the procedure. Who would have thought you could even do that? The power of the human mind 💫...

Here comes the positive...I can breathe. My allergies have subsided, congestion has eased, and I don't get as many headaches. I'm also pretty sure my voice is less nasaly, even though the hubs denies it. I heard myself speak in a video recently and didn't hate my voice so...I think it did.

All things considered, would I do this again? Absolutely. I wish I had gone in expecting some of the not-so-great things about the procedure, instead of believing everything the doctor said. Even knowing all the negatives of this procedure, I feel air in (literally inside) my face/sinuses where I have never felt it before.

Do I recommend this to everyone? Definitely not. My sister-in-law, who has chronic sinus issues 10x worse than mine, could not even hear me describe this procedure. If it was more of an outpatient procedure where you were put under anesthesia, I could see someone like her doing this.

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If you are planning on having a balloon sinuplasty, I hope you give it careful consideration. I am very happy I did it, and I hope if you end up doing it, my experience helps you be a little more prepared.

Until next time,

Bee 🐝