Having a chronic sinus infection can impact your quality of life with hammer-blow force. You have difficulty sleeping, breathing, interacting in public, and food often tastes funny. Depending on your sinus infection, you might have chronic nausea from the amount of mucus in your digestive system, no matter how many nose-blows you do. Constant nausea does not make you make you want to get out of bed, let alone go to work or school, raise kids, pay the bills and anything else you have to do. This is when surgery will be offered as an option. You might not have much choice but go under the knife, but you still should be aware of the problems with sinus surgery.
The Band Aid Effect
One of the biggest problems with sinus surgery is that often it is an incredibly elaborate band aid (plaster) for your overall sinus infection problem. If it is not known why your sinuses are so infected, then the relief of the surgery will only be temporary. You and your doctor need to discover what the source of your sinus infection is and attack that. But if you are having trouble getting a firm diagnosis, then temporary relief may be better than no relief. Just realize that it is usually not a cure-all.
Surgery In General
There are three main kinds of sinus surgery, but each requires your innards to be exposed to what is ever in the outer environment. One of the problems with sinus surgery is the problem with any kind of surgery – risk of a post operative infection, a bungled operation or any other problems recuperating from surgery in general. Your doctor will not suggest surgery lightly because of these risks. If you have a strange growth or malformed sinuses, then surgery will actually be of great benefit to you.
What You Still Need To Do
Another of the problems with sinus surgery is that you still have to do regular nose maintenance. You just can’t ever get the attitude that the sinus infection will never come back because you’ve had surgery. You still need to keep your nose clean, literally and figuratively. Nasal washes are recommended, maybe even an air purifier, as well as trying to keep as healthy as possible. If you smoke, guess what? You better knock it off. If you regularly hang out with smoking friends, you will need to have them not smoke around you. For some, this may be the biggest of their problems with sinus surgery.
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