While celebrities seem flawless, they are only human. And human sometimes have deviated septum. If you suffer from this condition, perhaps it will make you feel better to know that you are in the company of people like Fergie, Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz. Each of them had to have their nasal septum corrected by a surgeon. Here are some things that will help you understand more about nasal septum deviation. They include explanations about what it is, what it does to you and how to deal with it.
Reasons for Deviated Septum
Your nasal septum is that internal part of your nose that divides it in two. It is made of bone and cartilage. In most cases, deviated septum is something that you are born with. At first, you may not have it as a child. Your nose grows and alters throughout your life. So, your nasal septum can change, as well, and form deviation. Other ways for your septum to be deviated is by injury or trauma. Breaking the bone or cartilage will definitely cause it to grow back and. At times, the bone may not grow back perfectly. The new shape of it may be crooked and cause breathing difficulties.
Symptoms
At times, the appearance of the nose is one of the first signs of deviated septum. The nose can be crooked because of the septum bone that is not aligned. Since the nose is the central part of the face, this is a serious problem for some people. Other symptoms that can be signs of this are regular feeling of being clogged, nose bleeds and facial pain. A lot of people that have this type of problem also report that they snore.
Issues
If you suffer from deviated nasal septum, snoring is the least of your worries. This is a usual symptom that occurs because the deviation blocks the air from freely passing through the nasal cavity. When this happens, people tend to open their mouths and breathe through them while sleeping. That is when snoring usually happens. This air blocking is present throughout the day when the person is awake. Less air means less oxygen for the brain. This further leads to the feeling of exhaustion, tiredness and even headaches. Some people have issues with facial pain. In some cases this is actually a problem that is caused by the nasal septum putting pressure to the outside of your nose. Regular nosebleeds are caused by the air that dries off the skin, causing it to break easily. The crooked septum is a blockade that the inhaled air needs to avoid. Turbulence occurs inside the nose and that is what dries off the skin.
Real Dangers
All these were the issues that are more or less easily endured. There are other problems caused by the deviated septum that are not that easily dealt with. Deviated septum can cause constant or frequent nasal drip. It may seem like you are having a prolonged cold. More importantly, it can cause frequent sinuses infections. While this may not seem like a bit problem, it can cause one. Constantly treating these kinds of infections involve using medicine like antihistamines and antibiotics. Your body can become resistant to these medicine and that is an issue if you need them later on for treating some more serious conditions. Treating one sinus infection after another is just masking a much deeper problem. Another, very serious condition is sleep apnea. Person suffering from this condition can stop breathing in their sleep. It is obvious why this is a serious issue. The pauses in breathing are usually no longer than 20 seconds, but they are still dangerous for those that sleep. The breathing is also shallow and irregular.
Remedies
You can treat some of those symptoms individually without treating the cause. Nose bleedings will benefit from different remedies that will take care of the skin and make it more resistant to damage. Clogging and the cold symptoms can be soothed with antihistaminic applied locally. However, there is only one way to treat the underlying cause of all these issues and that is rhinoplasty. If you experience any of these symptoms, you need to visit your doctor. They will determine if your nasal septum has any sort of deviation. If they conclude that it is a significant deviation, you will undergo a routine surgery. That will fix your problem and all the symptoms.
Before going to the doctor, try testing your septum at home. All you need to do is to block one nostril at the time and try to breathe through the other one. If one nostril lets in significantly more air than the other, there is some deviation on your septum. If you cannot tell the difference, then you probably don’t have these sort of issues. Either way, your doctor will know your diagnosis after a short check.