Having Trouble Breathing Through Your Nose?

Difficulty breathing through your nose can be annoying for most but socially awkward for some. The good news is, often this can be treated fairly easily. To determine what treatment is right for you, the cause of the difficulty must first be determined. Difficulty breathing through the nose, or nasal airway obstruction, can be due to anatomic abnormalities on the inside of the nose, collapse of the nose with breathing, or congestion due to allergies and sinus disease. A thorough evaluation by a knowledgeable rhinoplasty physician is necessary to delineate the cause and propose treatment.

The nose can be thought of as a tripod. The center part of the inside of the nose is termed the nasal septum. The septum is made up of both cartilage and bone. At times because of trauma or genetics this can be deviated and cause obstruction of one or both sides of the nose. This alone can cause difficulty breathing through the nose or can be associated with other problems. In patients who have previously broken their nose, the outside of the nose can be obviously bent creating breathing difficulties. Functional problems may exist in which the nose actually collapses when breathing in. Both of these problems often require surgical correction. If surgery is undertaken it is important that the physician considers not only the functional but also the cosmetic look of the nose during surgery.

Nasal breathing can also be made difficult by nasal congestion caused by allergies and sinus disease. It is increasing understood that sinus disease and allergies are related and probably on a continuum with each other. In patient with chronic nasal allergies, the lining of the nose becomes inflamed which makes breathing difficult. This swelling of the mucosa, or nasal lining, can also cause sinus drainage paths to become blocked and require surgical drainage of the sinuses to decrease pressure, pain, and chronic runny nose.  The turbinates, structures inside of the nose on the outside wall of the nose, normally serve to humidify air that is breathed in, can also become enlarged, blocking the nose. Trimming of these turbinates may be necessary to open the nose and restore normal breathing.

In addition to surgery, long term allergy control will likely to be necessary in patients who have chronic runny nose and allergy symptoms. Identifying the offending substance is the first step in resolving allergy woes.  If the offending allergen is removed from the environment, often the allergy problems will resolve. If not, procedures can be performed which desensitize the person to the allergen.

Unfortunately at times, nasal airway obstruction isn’t as simple as an anatomic or sinus problem, it can be related to abnormal growths and at times, cancers. An examination with a flexible scope through the nose is always warranted in cases of nasal airway obstruction to be sure that a cancer is not present. Though unusual, the consequences of a missed diagnosis would be devastating. It is important to see a physician who specializes in disorders of the nose when considering nasal airway obstruction before simply treating the symptoms.

For more information about this and other facial plastic surgery topics, visit Dr. D.J. Verret on the web at http://www.innovationsfps.com/.