Deviated Septum
Often, all types of cosmetic plastic surgery patients are nervous; we tell them they need not feel like only the lonely because virtually all type of surgery patients are on edge.
But one particular 38-year-old woman who traveled to us from Washington, D.C., mentioned right off the bat she had a generalized anxiety syndrome that includes claustrophobia. Let’s just call her, oh, to pick a name out of the air, Ioana. Anything even remotely obstructing her breathing causes a panic attack.
Ioana came to us for a rhinoplasty and –during the same one and one-half hour surgical session — correction of her bent septum (medically, a deviated septum like the one pictured above) and reduction of her swollen turbinates, both of which were interfering with healthy breathing.
(Read more about deviated septum surgery and turbinate reduction.)
Ioana had looked high and low for a top notch nasal surgeon because, in those three procedures, best medical practices call for nasal packing after surgery. But that packing requires patients to breathe through their mouths; some have said nasal packing is like having a clothes pin on your nose for almost a week. (Continued below.)
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The patient below and top shows a blocked left nostril and a nose leaning to the right. On the bottom, the patient has had rhinoplasty and correction of the bent septum, all surgically done through the nostrils. (Robert Kotler, M.D. photo.)
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(Continued.) However, we were able to accommodate Ioana due to our recent, FDA-cleared device, the Kotler Nasal Airway. But, hey, let Iona tell her story in her own words, drawing from the letter she wrote: “The Kotler Nasal Airway is a design of two small, thin breathing tubes that allow you to breathe (almost) normally as soon as you wake up from the surgery and through the recovery process – even though he (Dr. Kotler) fully packs the nose. This includes full sleep at night!”
Results? Again in Ioana’s words: “Two weeks post-op, I could breathe better than in the past six years or so. And my nose is BEAUTIFUL. It is very natural looking, yet different enough to say…wow..this was all worth it. I wanted people to notice I had a nose job. I wasn’t shy about it. Well, nobody noticed the nose…they just said I looked better than ever…and they are right!”
We don’t have Ioana’s after nose job pictures just yet because those won’t be taken until February of the New Year, but we have always said that a nose fitting the face and flattering the profile is a wonderful thing.
(Read more plastic surgery review letters.)