Air stewardess Ann Brookes had an operation on her nose last year to cure breathing problems that had plagued her since childhood.
Here, Ann, 43, who is single and lives in South London, tells us about her operation – a septorhinoplasty – and her surgeon describes the procedure.
THE PATIENT
As a child, I never knew what it was like to breathe normally. When I swam, I could never be like everyone else and put my head in and out of the water, because it simply took me too long to fill my lungs with air.
I also had trouble reading aloud because I would run out of breath before I finished a sentence, and, although I loved athletics, I was constantly struggling for air when I tried to compete.
My mother recalls that she was forever taking me to the GP and telling him I was not breathing properly. The verdict was always that this was simply the way I was. In the end, I learned to live with it.
But it wasn’t until 1997, when I started flying on aeroplanes as an air stewardess, that the problems really started. Over the next two years I had five or six chest infections, each one worse than the last.
Also, I was often dizzy, struggled to breathe and, worst of all, there was a continuous drip of vile viscous fluid going down the back of my throat.
It was horrible, because I was always trying to blow it out or cough it up, and the inside of my nose felt swollen and sore.
And it wasn’t as if the problem disappeared as soon as I landed. It would take several days before I felt normal. Often, I was flying back-to-back trips and I would feel terrible for days.
Then the GP noticed that my septum – the piece of cartilage which separates the two nasal passages – was quite badly twisted.
In June 1999, he referred me to an ENT consultant, David Roberts at Guy’s Hospital, and the appointment came through for September, just a few months later.
Mr Roberts explained that my septum was blocking off most of the top of the left nostril and the bottom of the right nostril. I was pretty shocked.
He told me it had been caused by a very old trauma, but all I could remember was that when I was about three, my younger sister kicked me in the face. Perhaps that was when it happened.
Mr Roberts gave me a steroid spray, which I had to use once a day for a year to settle down the inflamed nasal lining. It helped slightly, but I was still having trouble when I was flying.
I went back to Mr Roberts in September 2000, and we agreed that an operation called septorhinoplasty was needed.
He explained that he would be repositioning the septum in a straight line so that both nasal passages would be clear. He would also break the external nasal bone, which was twisted, and re-set it.
I had to wait another 14 months for the operation. I reached a low point when I was on a long-haul flight to the Caribbean and I lost my voice; I had a terrible chest infection and my nose was completely blocked.
I was worried whether I would make the flight back home. I had bronchitis, laryngitis and inflamed nasal passages, and I knew I was in danger of having to give up my job.
Finally, in November last year, I went to Guy’s for the operation. I was taken down to theatre around midday, and I woke up a couple of hours later feeling as if I had had a really good sleep.
I didn’t have any facial bruising: in fact the only sign that I had had an operation was a small cast on the bridge of my nose. The only discomfort came from the congealed blood in my nostrils – which also meant I didn’t notice any immediate improvement in my breathing.
I went home the following day with instructions not to get the cast wet, and to clean the blood away from the nostrils but not to prod up into the nose.
A few days before the cast came off, most of the blood had cleared away and I realised I was breathing through my nose for the first time in ages.
Ten days after the operation, I had the cast taken off and my nose was completely clear. I could breathe easily and it felt wonderful.
Almost immediately, the nasal drip disappeared, the chest infections cleared up and I even slept better. I flew long-haul shortly after the operation and I didn’t have any problems at all.
I would have never dreamed that a seemingly minor problem, such as a twisted septum, could have caused so many problems.
Read the full online article here.
by ISLA WHITCROFT, Daily Mail