STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I've had it, three times, because of a car accident. It hurts, a LOT, recovery time is about two weeks before you can be seen in public (at least 8 years ago this was the case) and there can be problems with scar tissue. Some procedures can be done as an outpatient with local anasthesia - my last one was and it still HURT - some they put you in a trance (like dental surgery) and some they put you under. They try to talk you into not going under if possible, though, because it lengthens recovery time, increases risks and makes the procedure much more expensive. The local anasthesia was really uncomfortable and gross, but bearable. Goign under was weird and inconvenient because there's more prep involved and I reacted poorly to the drugs the first time (turns out I'm allergic to demarol). I never did a procedure in the trance thing.

My first surgery involved a broken bone, though, so that might have been part of the pain. Ask the doctor if he packs your sinuses. If he does, his technique is outmoded and your nose will look funny after it heals. The first doctor I went to did this. (It was in a small town, after a car accident, so I couldnt' pick a good doctor. It took two surgeries to correct what he'd done). The second said never to pack the sinuses. He just wrapped my nose with gauze and a driip pad (yeah, it's what you think, and it's as gross as you think).

Once you've messed around with your nose, it seems like it never goes back to the way it was, according to two other friends who have had the same thing done (both had broken noses too, followed by corrective surgery). the nose will puff, you can get weird nosebleeds triggered by like, nothing, and one friend's tip sort of went crooked after a few years because she sleeps on her left side. I'm not sure how much of these problems could have been caused by the nasty breaks, though.