Postoperative nasal breathing (rhinoplasty)

Many patients, their parents and relatives ask us that does their breathing gets worse after surgery of the nose?

It is clear that they have friends or people who have had difficulty in breathing after surgery.
The answer is that, unlike what is thought about rhinoplasty, it is not over-shrinking and abnormal narrow-down of the nose and nostrils; it is an action to reconstruct the nose in such a way to beautify and adjust the appearance of the nose to the face, and improve the respiratory and olfactory performance of the nose.

Most nasal surgeries are related to the noses, which have septal deviation, nasal turbinate hypertrophy, old internal and external fractures, or their combination; and these problems can be corrected by septorhinoplasty. Moreover, down-turned tip nose and narrow nasal septum, seen in many Iranian people, are recovered after surgery or all of them help improve breathing, so we expect that breathing will improve after surgery.

 In some cases, breathing may be worse after non-scientific rhinoplasty:

Over-resection of the nasal mucus layer and the respiratory cartilage, especially the upper or lower lateral cartilage that causes the collapse of the inner or outer nasal valve, excessive or inappropriate resection of nasal fins or over-narrowing of the entire nose, including the bones of the nose, etc., which can narrow the respiratory tract, are some examples of this case.

The issues mentioned above are in fact unscientific works that can sometimes happen and can be modified.

Another case is the activation or worsening of the allergy, which is actually a type of functional rather than the structural obstruction. In some people who have allergy, this may occur and make breathing more difficult.

Of course, we expect that most people who have allergy, nasal abnormalities and enlarged turbinate, their allergy is improved at the same time as septorhinoplasty and the correction of the nasal abnormalities and turbinate, but sometimes their allergies may be worsen.

In the end, in a scientific septorhinoplasty operation, not only we don’t not expect that the patient’s breathing be worsen, but also it improves after the correction of nose tip, the reinforcement of respiratory sections, and opening the internal obstruction of the nose. However, the overall size of the nose may be reduced.